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Well last night was great I sat down with my wife and best friend to run the "the Queen with Burning Eyes" adventure from #113 of Dungeon. This adventure is filed with goblins, grimlocks, nagas, insane cultist, thugs trying to pummel character in to unconsciousness etc. So in general all around good fun. Well my wife and friend are playing the following kind of characters.
Wife
Isabella , 2nd lvl Changeling Rogue hp 18 (she had some good rolls....until we started playing)
Friend
Demtri, 1st lvl Monk/1 Lvl Ranger hp 19 (wonderful rolls....see above)
All was going quite well until they had to go explore the dungeon. When they got there they came to a door Which the rngr/mnk decided to open even though he heard voices mumbling in some jibberish language on the other side. So he opens the door and jumps into the shadows making a hide and move silently check which he passes(one of the few times) and then two goblins step out and at first don't see anything. that is until he tries his hand at sneaking up on them from behind. Well he made noise they heard it, combat occurs and when all is said and done we have two dead goblins and two hurt pcs who decide to continue on. (they have no idea there is another goblin hiding in the next room waiting to stab one of them) So they enter the next room and a goblin goblin with one lvl of rogue sneak attacks my wife she is down to 8 hit points. they quickly dispatch the goblin after that.
they search the room and find a hole leading down the more dungeon and a lighted room. so they jump down. and start looking around. on either side of the room are two statues. they go up to examine them. I ask both of them for spot checks. my wife fails, my friend does not (he switched dice finally claiming the d20 he was first using was cursed). So out from behind the statue next to my wife comes a rather large stone ax that with this attack of oppurtunity on my wife's character isabella the grimlock drops her to 0. she is out.. Combat begins.
Round one: the two creature (revealed to be grimlocks.) attack.
my friend however has a few lucky shots due to his flurry of blows ability and the fact that he is using Kamas. He almost kills the first one. the second grimlock moves to join in the killing of my friend who is down 10 hp.
Round two: Dm has lucky rolls looks at friend and decides not to kill off both character so early in the game (yes yes I know this post is about tpk but it gets better cause isabella isn't dead yet...just slowly bleeding out). Grimlock misses...So my friend dispatches the first grimlock.... grimlock two can't seem to hit (this time I didn't fudge the dice...)
Round three: due to a lucky shot and the fact the my dice are now rolling like they are cursed he knocks this grimlock down in one round with the help of flurry of blows.
end of comabt....Demtri searches the bodies of the grimlocks. finds a flask with a strange green liquid in it. (I guess its not too late to mention the Demtri is NE..right?). So he goes over to what he is not sure is isabella (due to the fact she was shapechanged into in my wife's words looking like Rosario Dawson and is now unconsciousness see eberron book for more details on changelings and how they look when they are out) so Demtri decides to test the green liquid on "creepy faceless chick" (let me explain to you now that it is Alchemist fire). So he opens her mouth and pours a good mouth full down her throat which kills her....from the inside......he decided to rob her of her stuff......
he returns to the inn to get some rest where he is pummeled by thugs and kidnapped.......(yes all your good two-shoes he got what was coming to him)
and thats my story what's yours.....
The players once challenged me to kill them (well I took it as a challenge). So I thought I might scare them with something really horrible. Unfortunately the three umber hulks where more horrible than even I thought. Long story short - terminal scare and a less than satisfying end to the campaign.
LT, you might check out the following threads for more clever ways to TPK your party: "Help James kill off some PCs" (for the tragic tale of the rend ability and James Jacobs' characters), "The Evil that DMs Do" (the one I started, listing things like what you did last night) or for Adventure Path fans the popular and aptly named "How many character deaths in your Adventure Path?" thread in the Shackled City AP List.
Anyone one of these should give even the most dedicated sadist hours of amusement.
Hehehe,
GGG
The point is that if you didn't expect them all to die you needed to have the goblins carrying healing potions. If there is no cleric its the PCs only chance.
One thing I've learned through many years of DMing is that if you always need a cleric that can heal. A Human Cleric 1/Fighter 1 would have given you the armor, weapons and feats to do some head cracking, and allows you to do some healing after the fight. I'd have suggested that the mnk/rng gone say Cleric/Ranger or Cleric/Monk instead. I guess you could also give the Bard in the party a Wand of Cure Lt wounds, but either way I firmly believe that the ability to heal is the most important factor to any party.
ASEO out
Oh yeah, healing is important... but if no one wants to bite the bullet and be the healer, then they have to invest in healing.
OR
They are simply very careful, and then they run, rest, and recuperate whenever they get hurt (they didn't leave after the goblins... their own fault).
CRs are designed for the 4 player group. You only had two, so it's alot tougher for them. A similar CR encounter is going to burn up a LOT of their resources. ..
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I actually let them start at second level just so that they might be able to survive longer, the problem is that the third person in the group won't be starting to play till next month so till then they will have to run and recupriate just like you said. they actually did have a few healing potions and they each chugged one had bad rolls. hopefully they will survive this weeks encounter. I ordered a few old dragon issues so that I could put in a npc with a class that totally rocks. My wife is going to try a half-drow barbarian based off the new drow presented in the latest dragon mag. prolly multi-class later as a warlock. problem is I have had a hard time finding the stats for the half-drow. Or rather their racial traits. I read in a few places that they have just the same as half-elves but that doesn't seem right to me. I know Forgotten Realms released a book that listed there exacts racial stats but I don't have the book. I think it was the shining south book not sure. Anyone happen to know they're stats?
The players once challenged me to kill them (well I took it as a challenge). So I thought I might scare them with something really horrible. Unfortunately the three umber hulks where more horrible than even I thought. Long story short - terminal scare and a less than satisfying end to the campaign.
LT, you might check out the following threads for more clever ways to TPK your party: "Help James kill off some PCs" (for the tragic tale of the rend ability and James Jacobs' characters), "The Evil that DMs Do" (the one I started, listing things like what you did last night) or for Adventure Path fans the popular and aptly named "How many character deaths in your Adventure Path?" thread in the Shackled City AP List.
Anyone one of these should give even the most dedicated sadist hours of amusement.
Hehehe,
GGG
And don't miss the Castle Maure Thread. True evil - Super Sized!