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Another dead a NPC but still (Grand total: 3 NPCs dead,4 PCs dead)
CHARACTER:Alek Certival (Aristocrat 1/paladin 9)
CATALYST:Massive fire damage
ADVENTURE: Test of the smoking eye
LOCATION: The celestial rubble before the Cathedral of feathers
The PCs saved Alek from Nabthotoron, and carried him over to Occipitus.
When camping outside the cathedral to replenish the spells before entering, the get attacked by two green slaads who rained fireballs upon them, delay death spells saved two of the party members but sadly they couldn´t save the improved version of Alek.
Another death in the final session of my SCAP game, which brings me to a grand total of six deaths.
2. Lord Orbius Vhalantru kills the druid with his death ray.
3. Lord Orbius Vhalantru kills the cleric/bard with his disintegrate ray.
4. Decrihni Baiul kills the rogue with Slay Living spell.
5. Moltenwing kills the shadowdancer with his disintegrating breath.
6. Adimarchus kills the fighter with his implosive strike.
First character death. Vander Hollow the duskblade was killed by Xukasas the "ogre" with a falchion swipe.
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I've had 11 deaths in total, almost half due to party in-fighting
Don't allow any of your players to take the Frenzied Berserker class...
Chapter 3 - party rogue got hit by a fireball
Chapter 4 - Mummy Rot killed a druid
Chapter 4 - 10D6 Lightning bolt trap on mystic Theurge
Chapter 6 - Ranger pc was bored of his character, so he tried to kill himself in the test of sacrifice. Came back to life as the ruler of occiptus (lol)
Chapter 7 - Warlock PC accidently killed the ranger next session with Chilled tentacles
Chapter 7 - The rest of the party killed the Warlock in retaliation...
Chapter 7 - Warlock player came back as frenzied berserker, killed another player accidently
Chapter 8 - Frensied beserker thought he could take on 3 demodands by himself, was wrong. (the other players just watched & laughed instead of helping)
Chapter 10 - Mage killed by Hookface
Chapter 11 - Beserker killed ranger again by accident
Chapter 12 - Cleric got killed by Valantru's Finger of Death ray
I'm expected a couple more as they go through Skullrot
Just racked up deaths 2 and 3 in the campaign. Despite knowing that they were at the very least facing Vitriss Bale, a green dragon, and the fact that he had been in Karran Kural (sp?) for many, many years they did not take any precautions for the fight with him.
The combat was a cakewalk for Vitriss. He wiped the floor with the party, killing both the 12th level Warblade and the 12th level Hexblade whilst only taking damage from a Disintegrate cast on him by the Conjurer. The party ran off with their tails between their legs to regroup (and raise dead! :-D).
The second time they came back with Freedom of Movement, Haste and Fly spells on, as well as Resist Acid. This time the fight went much more according to plan. The only casulty was the Monk, who was killed when he copped a full attack from Vitriss. Luckily the Favoured Soul was close enough to administer a Revivify and prevent a more permanent death.
Olaf the Stout
So far the first and only charecter "death" is my charecter.
Dorian the Grey, Cleric of Wee Jass.
2nd level cloistered cleric variant from unearthed arcanna. It was in the abandoned gnome city and I got hit for 7 points of damage from a automoton, then I got hit for a crit from a skulk that was flanking me,confirmed the crit and added in sneak attack. I was at 10hp and took 24 points of damage.
My group took me back to the temple of St. Cuthbert but jennya couldn't do anything. They took me back to Wee Jass and Ickle Iverson himself cast raise dead which was them boosted to a true resurection because wee jass has plans for me.
I was stareing at a veil of grey and was about to go though when a perfectly formed human female hand reached out from beyond the veil and placed me in her palm. She told me that I was a true follower and that she was sending me back to observe. She warned me that she was not at all pleased with what was being done in her temple and that I was to obey her in this.
Ever since then I have been haveing strange prophetic dreams about the kidnapped boy terren being surrounded by eyes and then he starts crying tears of blood, theres more to the dream but thats the gist of it.
Thank goodness for the true res I was only 100exp away from 3rd level and a regular raise dead would have put me back at first since it costs you a level.
I'm sure there may be more party deaths but so far I'm the first.
Update.
The next charecter deaths are a two'fer.
Our druid lost his climb dog animal companion Brinn. We were fightning the dwarf and half orc mercenairies underneath theb bath house complex. We had already stommped the vamp(yea scroll of searing light) and we should have left but we had full health and spells and wanted to explore. So our theif was scouting ahead and got jumped. The rest of the party charged in and began the fight of our lives.
The climb dog was hit by multiple attacks and then when the druid announced that he was barley at neg 9 the druid went invisible thanks to his potion and left his dog to die. He didn't mind because the dog had out lived it's usefulness and he wanted a flesh raker dinasaur as an animal companion anyway.
The theif got hit for 10 then 8 then got crited for 35 from the halbeards the half orcs were weilding. By this time the sorcerer and the cleric of wee jass(me) were laying down fire and destruction with the sorcerer criting TWICE with the spell Fangs of the Vampire King(dm allowed BoVD version Not the nerfed one in spell comdendium) the sorcerer killed the dwarf and I fireballed the half orcs with my type 2 neclace and the fighter mopped up.
Now we have a flesh racker dinosaur animal companion(we don't let the druid bring that monster in town) and a halfling-scout/theif/fighter.
More deaths to follow I'm sure.
The party I'm running this campaign for is into Chapter 4 now, and they've finally had their first character deaths. (Lots of close calls up till now, and I think everyone's been in negatives at least once, but this was the first time anyone really bit it for good.) So, in memoriam:
Audhild Strackel, Dwarf Fighter 6
Ursula Drausdatter, Half-drow/Half-elf Rootwalker 6 (Subterranean druid)
It was Gottrod that did them in. He had already done the party a lot of damage -- he had breathed twice, and he caught 5 of 6 party members in the first breath for 6d10 each --but was getting low on HP, so he decided to grab the dwarf (who had a fly spell cast on her and was trying to reach him to engage in melee), make a run for it, and pump her for information before he toasted her for an afternoon snack. The other party members were able to hit him with a lightning bolt and a couple of arrows as he fled, and he was within 2 HP of death. If the dwarf had been able to hit him with her armor spikes, even, she would have finished him off. But he talked her into not struggling, and he was able to run away at 600 ft. per round by air. The druid cast call lightning, turned into an eagle, and took off after him, hoping to finish him off before he could kill her comrade; the rest of the party was left far behind. But the dragon was so fast that it outflew her, got to the other side of a nearby mountain, and hid in a copse of trees. While the druid-eagle drew closer and started to search, Gottrod told the dwarf that he was going to set her down, and if she tried to flee, attack, or do anything other than slowly open her cure potions and pour them in his mouth, he was going to burn to her a cinder. She followed his instructions, and two potions later he was 30 HP better off. So when the eagle spotted them and zapped him with a lightning strike, he had enough HP to withstand it. Pissed off, he torched the dwarf into negatives, leaving her 1 HP from death, and launched himself after the eagle. The dwarf didn't make her stabilization roll, and she was done. The eagle/druid tried to run for it and get back in range of the party so she could get some assistance, but the dragon could easily keep pace with her, kept putting himself between her and the party (who were something like 2000 ft. away at that point over rough terrain), and made attacks of opportunity when she tried to rush past. He knocked her down to 3 HP left, she tried to get around him again, and he bit her for critical damage, knocking her to -24, slicing her body in half, and letting the parts fall to the ground, returning to her normal form as they did. So he followed her body down, collected it with all its gear, went back to gather up the dwarf's remains, and then departed, carrying them both back to his lair to feed, recuperate, and examine his new additions to his hoard.
Ah well, it had to happen eventually! And if you're going to get taken out, a red dragon is a pretty respectable way.
So what happens next, Cleanthes? Replacement characters? Some sort of rescue mission (seems too late for that)? Or do a different campaign?
If you do replacement characters (or recovery somehow), I'd like to hear about how you do it. Traditionally, I've always said every character starts at 1st level, though there are two loopholes: (1) play a "monster" character with a higher ECL or (2) take over an existing NPC in the campaign.
I don't have many permanent deaths in my campaigns, but route 2 is popular for people joining new, midgame.
I'm letting my players work up new 6th level characters, whom we'll insert into the story wherever it seems appropriate -- which will of course depend on what sorts of characters they create. One obvious place to insert them is in the prison at Bhal-Hamatugn, so that is probably my fall-back position, but depending on the character and his/her/its backstory, I may also have the party run into them somewhere in the Underdark on the way to Bhal-Hamatugn. I certainly wouldn't end the campaign over a couple character deaths, and making them start from level 1 isn't much fun. I think it's bad enough just to lose your character (and they were both pretty invested.) I do think, however, that the party intends at some point to seek revenge against Gottrod, and as a secondary matter to retrieve some of the items Gottrod took. (Those two characters were the party's chief pack mules, so they were carrying some equipment for other players when they got carried off by the dragon. Ouch!) The player playing the party's elf scout seemed more upset about losing his silk rope the dwarf was carrying than about losing the dwarf! Ahhhh, friendship.
Deaths:
1 in Life's Bazaar:
Dwarf Monk 2,
Catalyst: Tougher than he looked half-dwarf...
1 Death in Drakthar's way:
Gnome Gunslinger 3
Catalyst: Don't split the party
0 Deaths in Flood Season (amazingly, but close!)
0 Deaths in Zenith Trajectory
1 Death in the Demonskar Legacy
Goliath Druid 7
Catalyst: 2 Huge Fire Elementals (party was split. Again. For the heroism, though, the Goliath did earn an apology at the beginning of the encounter).
Only 3 real deaths. Wow. I'm actually impressed by this.
Had another character death in our campaign tonight, an unexpected one.
Deceased: Rhao Tai-Shen, 9th level Monk
I'm running a truncated version of Shackled City (cutting out most of Chs 5-8), so the party is presently making its way through Foundation of Flame as Level 9 characters. (I'm adjusting everything downward so that the adventure is still manageable.) Anyway, this was the first encounter of the evacuation process; the cataclysm threatening to envelop Cauldron has just begun. The first event I hit them with was the "Squished" encounter: a 50' deep chasm has opened up, lots of townspeople have fallen inside, some of them now dying, and the chasm is starting to shudder closed. The party handled it pretty well; by the last couple rounds most of the civilians were out, and it looked like they were going to handle it with no problem. But to make things more interesting, I made the last townsperson obese, so he needed extra assistance, and I threw a tremor at them the last two rounds which forced everyone to make Reflex saves to hold on to ropes or stay standing. Miraculously the fat man hung on, and the party members pulling him up made enough Strength checks to get him to the top. But the party monk, Rhao, who was boosting him from beneath, failed his Reflex save in both rounds, so both times fell back to the bottom and had to start from scratch. That meant that in the last round he had to climb 50' in order to get out before the chasm shut with him inside. He took a move to stand up from prone, and then did an accelerated climb up the rope to get 30' up, 20' shy of the top. The rest of the party (5 other players) then tried to make Strength checks to haul him up the rest of the way. Each one that made a check could pull him up 5', so if 4 made their checks, he would make it out in the nick of time. But only 2 made their checks successfully, so, with him 10' below the edge, the rest of his comrades had to watch as the chasm slammed shut beneath their feet and entombed their friend.
I wasn't expecting to see a character killed in this encounter, but it took 2 failed Reflex saves and 3 failed Strength checks to do him in. He also died rescuing an innocent, which totally fit the character, so in a way it was a fitting end, and gives the players another layer of motivation against the Cagewrights (as if they needed it!)
His character had a romance going with Jil, the Last Laugh Assassin, and now the player has asked if he can play her as his new character. I think I'm going to let him; that should be fun!
Okay... not proud of this one, but it happened:
TPK. Test of the Smoking Eye.
I run seven PC's, and had two named Hezrou... they came in, after a set of party members got teleported (party was split), five rounds later, TPK.
To be fair, two Players weren't there, and the trigger was the teleportation. I figured one group would survive, but they did not :(
I hope you didn't kill them instantly with a Blasphemy from the hezrou. I hate that dang Blasphemy...
No, Blasphemy sent them scattered back to the Realms the first time they met them. The second time, the Hezrou took 'em out. Hezrou figured the rule of three would hit, and they'd get stuck with a mortal ruler.
2 more deaths in our Shackled City campaign, these courtesy of Moltenwing:
Raiden Delphiki, half-elf diviner 10
Jil (the NPC Last Laugh assassin, taken over by the character Jil had fallen in love with when that character died during Foundation of Flame.)
When the party encountered Moltenwing, they were pretty boneheaded about their approach to chatting him up; the (soon to be deceased) diviner just started telling him exactly why they were there and what they wanted to do, so Moltenwing knew right away that he was dealing with enemies. So they didn't need to talk for long before hostilities started. Moltenwing got the second move, lined up the party's dragonborn fighter and the diviner, and cut loose with his disintegrating breath. The fighter made his save, the diviner didn't, and poof! the party had a pile of ash and no wizard.
Shortly thereafter, Jil, who had found herself stuck on the wrong side of the dragon with no good options for retreat, was already at half hit points thanks to a blown Tumble check that got her a nasty bite. On his next action, Moltenwing circled around her and bullrushed her toward the lava lake. He beat her opposed check to push her right up to the very edge of the lake; the square she ended up on had a very thin slice of ledge that I ruled she could still stand on, but her heels were hanging over the pool. On her next action, she decided to try to do a standing long jump backwards over a 5' gap to a stone island in the lake. By the odds, she should have made it; it was only a DC 10, and she had something like a +4 modifier in Jump. (We're doing a curtailed version of the campaign, so the characters are lower level than you'd usually see for this adventure.) But her player blew the roll (and a 2nd roll he bought with a fate point too), fell into the lava, and was burned to a crisp, which Moltenwing then happily lunched on.
The dragonborn fighter got knocked into negatives a couple rounds later by a full attack routine too, so Moltenwing certainly made an impression on the party!
A couple more deaths to report, these 2 inflicted by Vhalantru/Orbius, who became the final boss in the Fiery Sanctum in my shortened campaign. The party had 7 players going in, and only 5 of them walked out. Before they finally killed Orbius, only 3 of the 7 were still capable of taking actions, with 2 dead and 2 asleep, so it was a pretty near thing. Anyway, the fatalities were:
Netfer, 10th level human warmage
Enaku, 10th level elf scout
The warmage did most of the party's damage to Orbius with Orb of Cold spells, so the beholder made knocking him out a priority. He got turned to stone once, but was turned back into flesh shortly thereafter, at which point Orbius hit him with a Finger of Death that did him in.
Enaku the scout also got hit with a Finger of Death, so both deaths are due to that eye stalk.
But for us, that's the end of the campaign, and you'd want a couple deaths at the big cinematic end of a 3 year campaign, right? And what's the harm in raising a couple characters if they're just going to get retired anyway? :-)
Congratulations on Finishing Cleanthes. My group has just finished test of the smoking eye and we have been playing for 5 years now (we all live about 100 miles apart and have full time jobs so getting game time is difficult. We manage about 12/18 session a year split between shackled city and a Star wars Campaign run buy one of the group). Also, I tend to add extra story elements to flesh out backstory. This included Tomb of Horrors recently so you can take 18 months off that if you just count shackled city.
Do you have another campaign planned? I have been watching your builds over at Fat Dragon and look forward to what your going to tackle next.
Elcian
Congratulations on Finishing Cleanthes. My group has just finished test of the smoking eye and we have been playing for 5 years now (we all live about 100 miles apart and have full time jobs so getting game time is difficult. We manage about 12/18 session a year split between shackled city and a Star wars Campaign run buy one of the group). Also, I tend to add extra story elements to flesh out backstory. This included Tomb of Horrors recently so you can take 18 months off that if you just count shackled city.
Do you have another campaign planned? I have been watching your builds over at Fat Dragon and look forward to what your going to tackle next.
Elcian
Yeah, one of the reasons we didn't move faster (making me work up the curtailed end-game) was all the backstory side-quest stuff I worked up for the players. (We spent months on the Flood Festival alone.) But this was the first campaign most of the players had ever played, and I wanted them to have the full experience. Besides, the point of playing the game is to have fun, and it's so much more fun when the players get to influence the story and see how their characters can shape their own world, right? We had to rush a bit at the end, but it was still tons of fun!
It's nice to hear that people have enjoyed my cardstock builds over at Fat Dragon; I had a great time making that stuff. (Elcian, do you post over there?) As for the next campaign, I'm not sure what happens next. It looks like 4 or 5 of my original 9 players are going to be staying in our general area, so it's possible we'll be able to keep playing. I might force them to take on the DM role for a while and let me take at least a short turn as a player. But I'm sure I'll start a new campaign eventually. My thinking right now is to switch us from 3.5 to Pathfinder and do one of the adventure paths. Since Shackled City was so heavily urban and pretty railroad-y, I'm thinking maybe Kingmaker for a big change of pace! And it would give me an excuse to put together lots of new terrain, too! ;-)
Hi Cleanthes,
I'm more a lurker than a poster. I've been on Paizo for about 7 years but only managed about 200 posts. I am registered over at Fat Dragon under the same name but not posted yet.
I enjoy looking at the gallery to see whats being built and get ideas. It was actually one of your posts that linked me over there. I think it was the Lucky Monkey build, or the umber hulk smash, so thank you for that. There is a great comunity there too.
I have the same thought about moving to pathfinder after shackled city but at our pace thats another 4-5 years away and we might be in pathfinder 2.0 by then. I was thinking more skull and shackles for a complete change but it depends on the group. Luckily one of our group is running a star wars campaign so I get to play as well as DM.
My group are also new and I agree the backstory makes the experience. I got them all to write thier own backstory before we began. Forgive the indulgence but here is a sample..
I have tied them all to the plot, though they dont know how yet. Its involved but so far the Rogue, an orphan, has discovered his farther is the Jester (i'm using some of Delvesdeeps alterations so the Jester is the leader of the last laugh). He found this out in the same scene as discovering that his childhood best friend is the Last Laughs hired assassin and that Jill (who was having an affair with)is the Jesters apprentice and has betrayed him all along.
Add to this that the Jester and Jill left the group to die at the hands of the hired assassin at which point the Ranger in the group realises this assassin killed his foster parents and the Priest realises, due to the jesters monologue that the Rogue had been hired by Jill to kill his sister and faked it to get the reward. The Wizard is completely confused and all hell breaks loose....
If only they discussed what they all know they have a lot of information but for some reason they dont seem to want to share it.
Anyway, I look forward to your future build..
Elcian
This is my third time running the SCAP (not counting an online pbp attempt which was prematurely aborted during chapter 1). We just finished Secrets of the Soul Pillars and so far there have been ZERO deaths. I think my PCs are lucky because it did not go that way the first two times around. We also started with seven players, but now we have three (plus one of the players took Shensen as a cohort). And they are still doing well. They play very smart. They do a lot of planning, a lot of scouting, and think things through before charging head-long into battle. They have actually managed to avoid a good number of encounters entirely (such as Dugobras, Dhorlot, and Vhorkaire). Their chief scout is a rogue/dragonmarked heir of Orien (campaign set in Eberron) who teleports quite frequently and has an incredible Hide and Move Silently skill to gather information. They have also been wise and curried good will with many NPCs. One of them (a LG kalashtar soulknife) zealously tithes to the Church of the Silver Flame (St. Cuthbert) for which I have rewarded him with a number of helpful long-term spells from Jenya. Another has joined the Striders of the Traveler (Fharlanghn) and taken Shensen as a cohort. They even made nice with the Stormblades and cooperate with them on a regular basis now. I am actually very impressed with how well a small team has tackled the AP so far. There have been some close calls to be sure, and no one has botched a saving throw versus death (there have been a handful from massive damage and spells). But they play together very well as a team and play smart.
It was a few years back, but when I did it as a player, we lost 1 PC to Dark Creepers, all but 2 PC's (3 I think) plus Jenya from the Temple of St. Cuthbert to the Mimic, and then got TPK'd in the market scene in the Malachite Fortress. So 10 dead without even finishing the first chapter, Life's Bazaar.
As a DM now, I continued the dungeon as left it so many years we completed the remaining part of Life's Bazaar with no losses, though I pulled some punches in the Market scene. And we had a party of 4 4th level and 1 2nd level PC.
When I was a player, I had one of only two PC's to survive that far, I think two at 3rd or 4th level, three at 2nd, clearly wasn't enough.
First death just occurred in my SCAP. It happened when the PCs invaded House Rhiavadi in Lords of Oblivion and came across the encounter I shall heretofore refer to as the clusterf--- of all encounters. So many different NPCs...
They sneaked around the outside of the house invisibly and looked for an unoccupied room on the ground floor, then popped in with a dimension door. A couple Listen checks later, they could hear Lady Rhiavadi giving her spiel on the second floor and started heading that way. Then they ran into the shield guardian in front of the bedroom and the sneaky way went the way of the dodo. They dispatched the shield guardian quickly in one round, but soon after heard spellcasting a few rooms over. They cast a few spells themselves and set up in defensive positions. Then the s--- hit the fan.
The babaus teleported into the room they were in after one of the PCs made enough noise to alert the NPCs as to their presence in the adjacent room. The shadow and dread wraith proceeded to enter the room from the ethereal plane and pop into place in optimal flanking positions. The dwarves breached the door into the room and then the spells from the casters started flying. The Blue Duke assumed gaseous form and moved into the center of the room to have optimal attack range against all the PCs who were essentially cornered and separated from each other. The PCs were smart enough to cast death ward before entering and so Mhad the vampire ended up dealing with Shensen's summoned monsters as they appeared, which was a sufficient distraction nevertheless (Shensen is a cohort of one my PCs).
One of the PCs, a kalashtar soulknife got trapped in a forcecage cast by Thifirane, but was promptly rescued by the rogue heir of House Orien (my SCAP is set in Eberron) who used an action surge to dimension door in and out in a single round. Meanwhile, the dread wraith was pounding the hell out of the fighter/wizard in another corner sapping him for Con drain for several rounds. It was to be his downfall. He succumbed to the Con drain and died. I rolled a 1 on the time until he rose as a wraith and so the PCs had little time until they were dealing with two wraiths (although the spawn was not quite as bad, it was still a double whammy of Con drain).
In the meantime they had managed to kill one of the clerics, two of the dwarves, and knock the Blue Duke down with truly incredibly amounts of nonlethal damage, ensuring he would not arise for many rounds to come. Unfortunately, the spellcasters in the other room just kept harrying them spell after spell and the dread wraith moved on to the kalashtar. Two rounds later, after a couple lucky rolls on the Con drain and some damage that had been dealt by the dwarves, the kalashtar was unconscious (but not dead). It was about that time I had to step in with a little deus ex. The rogue heir of Orien was out of teleports and the situation was looking dire.
Meerthan teleported in with the other Striders as well as Alek Tercival and Jenya who proceeded to destroy the wraiths with searing lights as quickly as possible while Fario and Alek moved into to provide cover. Meerthan and Rhiavadi engaged in a mono a mono spell duel (which ended in a draw; DM fiat since they are both approximately equal in power level). Jenya revived the kalashtar soulknife and he and the rogue proceeded to take down the remaining dwarf and push the bad guys back further. Finally, Lady Rhiavadi determined that events had gotten out of control and teleported away with a handful of the remaining mercenaries (only three remained), vowing to meet them in Oblivion if they dared where she would finish the job.
Jenya resurrected the fighter/wizard and some fire damage was lobbed onto the Blue Duke to finish him off. Then the PCs got to ransack the manor for all its valuable goodies. It was an epic session. I am really looking forward to Oblivion now. The PCs have a definite grudge against Rhiavadi now and really want to even the score.
Hah...we started the SCAP about 6 weeks ago, full 6-character party, 3 game sessions of ~7 hours each. After hearing about how deadly the AP was, I figured I should expect multiple deaths during Life's Bazaar. They almost pulled it off without - until the 3rd level Wizard bit it on the final encounter of the chapter. Mimic in Kazmojen's treasure room got surprise and damaged him, then won initiative and critted during the next round's full attack.
They were doing so good, too!