I'm starting this thread for those of us that want to share their "near kills" that keep finding their way into the STAP Obituaries thread.
Here's mine...
We're close to finishing "There Is No Honor". The party decided to investigate area D19. A couple of them entered the cave to investigate the slimy pool and the dead halfling and were attacked by the 3 rhagodessas. First the party druid was pulled up into a grapple by one on the wall above and taken into negatives. Then the paladin was grabbed and he also dropped to negatives. Whenever one of the other party members attacked and dealt damage to one of them, it would drop its victim and rush that person.
Long story short, the bard was using a CLW wand like crazy to to get people back to consciousness, everyone at some point during the fight was dropped to negatives, and everyone eventually made their stabilization rolls (I've never seen anything like it before!) - one of them got as far as -8 before stabilizing. There was a point where only one person was actually conscious and everyone was ready to make up new characters, but by doing tag-team healing they survived.
They finally dropped the rhagodessas with help from a summoned dire bat and good team work. I thought for sure they were all dead. The dice gods smiled on them last night.
In this week's session, my players had trouble with the training room ambush in the Lotus Dragons' hideout. The sorceress was taken out in the first round with urchin venom, and the dwarf fighter/rogue a round or two after that (after he made some terribly unlucky rolls, including his fortitude save). The half-orc ranger ended up dishing out most of the damage, kept alive by the cleric/wizard's cure light wounds spells.
The group is more built for sneaking and ambushing than charging into a big melee; when they're put at an initial disadvantage, things are tough for them. That said, I think this encounter is a tough one for just about any 2nd-level group (it's listed as EL 5).
A note for DMs: Don't overlook the Lotus Dragons' saps. Though they're "non-lethal", they'll put a character out of the combat almost as fast as the rapier; the half-orc only took a couple points of lethal damage, but was only a couple of points away from unconsciousness by the end. (One of the LDs had dropped his rapier to draw his crossbow, and then moved away from it; when the half-orc finally caught up with him, the sap was all he had left.)
Huh. I forgot about this thread. Kind of dropped into obscurity. Thanks for resurrecting it, Sben!
I have a couple more to share.
In The Bullywug Gambit my party got back to Vanderboren Manor and made their way upstairs to the top floor. They got to the encounter with Drevoraz the half-orc and the bullwug cleric of Dagon.
Once all diplomacy was abandoned, our party monk thought he could go toe-to-toe with Drevoraz and was killed in a single round (two hits, one of them a critical). Drevoraz then closed with the next closest party member and inflicted some pretty serious damage.
The group abandoned the fight and ran for their lives, some of them jumping over the railing surrounding the staircase opening to avoid any Attacks of Opportunity. Falling damage, prone... Here comes Drevoraz and the bullywug cleric double-timing it down the stairs and they're right on their heels again.
They were chased down to the atrium and made a stand there. The players thought for sure they were dead meat. One of them was tripped and decided to gamble for his life by standing and fleeing from Drevoraz, knowing he was going to get an AOO. However, Drevoraz rolled a natural 1.
It took a lot of hits from the cure wand and tactical positioning, but they managed to kill Drevoraz and the bullywug cleric.
In the side adventure I'm running right now, The Dungeon of Rust and Fire, one of the characters was climbing up the 180 ft. iron tower and was nearly to the top when the knot on the rope he was using came undone (bad Use Rope check by the halfling that tied it off) and he plummeted to the jagged rocks below. I think I rolled 39 points damage from the fall (10d6), which put him at -13.
I mentioned, "It's too bad you didn't have a feather fall spell prepared to the player running the wizard in the party. He replied, "I do have one prepared, but I didn't think I could cast it." In a rare moment of leniency I allowed him to cast the spell before the ranger that had been turned to hamburger bit it.
Of course, not an hour later, the same character decided he had a deathwish for that session. Confronted by an obviously well-armed and armored warrior gaurding a huge iron door into the areas beneath the tower, he boldly strolled past him and was cut down for his troubles. Reduced to -9 hp, he was healed before he reached -10 and the party hauled ass outta there.
Okay - So the party enters Lavina's mansion only to find that they have arrived far to late. They battle straight for the basement - thinking that it is likely that it could be used for a defensible position (hoping to find Livina there).
In a battle with The "Bullywug Chief" the party's warlock trying to maneuver to a better location strayed too close to the Chief, how on his attack of opportunity, rolled a natural 20, then confirmed his crit.
The last thing the warlock perceived before blacking out was a loud "BLURP!"
the blow dropped him to -8 and bleeding. Fortunately for him the party cleric was able to stabilize him. My player is now thinking that mobility might be a good investment ;)
So there they are- surrounded by 6 Vine terrors- 1 for each PC-
the battle isn't going well- the warmage is grappled( and unconscious, the ranger, and thief are bleeding to death- the mage is at 0 hit points- then the tide turned- the cleric ( with only 5 hps left cast a maximixed healing spell on himself- then the fighter drops the vine grappling the war mage-the mage shoots an acid arrow and goes negatve- the priest heals the war mage- who manages to drop 2 horros with a magic missle spell, the priest manages to heal the entire party- the thief gets down to -9. Had the priest not nad a tough concentration check to heal himself- it would have been a TPK. had the war mage not used his magic missiles right then- TPK. that fight was tougher then the Mother.
Currently running The Sea Wyvern's Wake... The group arrives at the Tamoachan ruins and sends the party ranger up to scout out the tunnels and rubble. However, this is after the party wizard casts summon monster to conjure up a fiendish dire rat, which he tells in Abyssal to go snoop around in the areas in question. The spell only lasts for 3 rounds, so the rat scurries up and squeaks a few times and then is gone.
Cue the ranger.
He peers into each of the tunnels going counter-clockwise and peers into the tunnel where the basisks are (note: I added a second one since my group is a bit large). They had been sleeping, but were wakened by the squeks of the rat, but hadn't gone out to investigate. The range pokes his head into their tunnel and BAM! he fails his second save as 2 pairs of eyes are staring back at him and he's suddenly petrified.
Fortunately, he was the only one affected this way and Urol Forol's salve returned him to his former fleshy self.
Female wizard on the Sea Wyvern has cast "fire stride" (the one that lets you dimension door from fire to fire) for easy mobility in the battle. She sees the fireballs from the yuan-ti's wand, knows she has an active "resist fire" spell, and says she wants to ready an action to fire stride into the mouth of the wand while it's being activated... my first thought was, "Impossible. She'd appear in the ball halfway from the ship, over the ocean, or it would fail, because a pea-sized pre-exploded ball isn't big enough anyway." But then I thought again; the visual "coolness" of her popping into being right on top of the guy was just WAY too cool to pass up; I just HAD to let her do it. Alas, she very nearly got totaled by the guy (yuan-ti SR is BAD!), and if the cleric hadn't shown up quickly, she'd have been one very dead wizard.
Still 1st level party
Under Parrot Island, the players open the double doors to the left as they exit the corridor with the shaft they entered by. The "light" (on the Swashbuckler's buckle - Knack for Magic Feat) shines into the room, like a torch beam (restricted by the fact he's back in the corridor). Initiative is rolled as the Shifter Barbarian, spots a zombie at the edge of his low-light vision and charges in. Swiftly followed by the fighter. The warmage follows after to get into a position to cast his spells. The Cleric delays and Finally the Swashbuckler gets to go and enters the room the light spreading out to cover the rest of the room.
It's at this point they can see the other two zombies that were hidden by the shadow of the doorway. The cleric cast a spell that gives light but can also be used as an attack. Now it's the zombies initiative and these two step out of the gloom to grab the Warmage and the Swashbuckler, biting down hard on each of them. Next round the fighters are still tied up with the zombie at the far end, the Swashbuckler manages to break free but the warmage goes down, the cleric expecting the zombie to back off the warmage now his spark of life is fading (just unconscious at this point) backs off to try and draw the one fighting the swashbuckler away.
The zombie however fails his will check and continues to chew on the unconscious warmage (taking him to -7) thankfully in the knick of time the fighter and barbarian are able to finish off the zombie and come to the warmage's aid. The Cleric is able to heal him up with a CLW and a wand of vigor. The vigor is still healing him up when other party members go to investigate the body in the water....
They added a few more light sources to the party and have been much more careful about charging into darkened rooms since then.
|
The wizard Skellthane has nearly died twice.The Flotsam ooze put him at -9 any more damage from my dice and he would have been sleeping with the fishes.The next time was vs some of the vine horrors animated seaweed vines.He ran from the Willow the wisp.No spells he had where any good and he had taken to much damage from the wall of fire.Skank Rat got turned to stone. But Urol had stone salve to save the day.Thats all I can remember for now.
|
After seperating from the group, getting to Vanderborn Manor ahead of the rest of the group, befrending Dravoraz with Harliss' ear ring, taken prison with Drevoraz when the Bullywugs double cross Drevoraz, escaping from their captors along with Drevoraz and running into the Huntress...Drevoraz died in combat. The Halfling had no armour and a dagger, and only 4 hit points left. She fled back to the basement (I changed up the basement encounter a bit from what was printed in the mag so at that moment there were no bullywugs down there). She jumped down the hole that the bullywugs used to gain entry to the house and she found her self in the city sewers and escaped by the skin of her teeth.
The rest of my group made it through the parties and parades in the streets and entered the house through the front doors. They ran into the Huntress and the Paladin was knocked to unconscious and barely stabalized in time. The Cleric also wound up unconscious and barely stabalized in time. The rest of the group were able to get her down enough that she dropped her weapons and begged for mercy. The Monk got some info from her and then knocked her unconscious with a couple of NON-lethal punches. The Cleric and Paladin were brought back up to full hitpoints and they set off for the basement. OH the Halfling eventually made it back to the Manor and met up with the group just after they finished the Huntress. She leads then to the basement but during the time she was down there and they returned The Chief and his boys started tormenting the Jade Raven chick with their Rust Monster. The group went in to save the fair maden. The Paladin squared off with the Chief. After 2 hits from the Chief's great club the Paladin was unconscious again and almost didn't stabalize. The group barely prevailed...again. They get the Paladin back up and head upstairs to save the Hostages. When they ran into the Bullywug Cleric he quickly drinks his potion of Sanctuary. This really ticked the group off. He then cast Summon Monster III. The best possible outcome. Rolled to see if there was a chance that 2 monsters would appear...they did. I then rolled to see if he could control them both...he could. They two Fiendish Apes ganged up on the paladin and...using Smite Good...Dropped the Paladin unconscious for the 3rd time in about oh...30/45 minutes of game time. We had to end the session there and we marked everything so we have no idea if the paladin is going to stabalize. He hadn't as of the time we had to leave...I'll let you all know what happens.
2 near TPK's. One in SWW with the first assult of the vine horrors. The swordsage was dominating combats before that so I really wanted to make the fight seem desperate. I sent about 12 of On the boat. It was nearly fatal to everyone but they used the elemental gem form TiNH to pull that one out.
The second is the fight with the bag-luras (sp?). The room through the mirror was tough, though they are burning through the CLW wands like they were kindeling.
I seem to have so many of these each week that they've become too numerous to make a full list of. One worth mentioning...
The aquatic hydra encounter in The Sea Wyvern's Wake. The PCs swimming in their skivvies in the lagoon (or for one of them nothing at all), no armor, no weapons, and up comes the hydra. It was a miracle that none of the PCs were killed. Several were very close, but with help from the Jade Ravens and some well placed/timed spells from a couple of my player characters, they survived.
Richard Pett, you are a devious, mean-spirited man for that one ;) I love you, man!
|
|
Some close calls :
- hold of the blue nixie (TINH) : Vergale (human fighter) and Veterini (human dragon shaman) into negs.
- caverns under parrot island (TINH) : Vergale (once again) put down into negs by a terrible ravenous zombie, not hungry enough, however.
Vif, the halfling rogue, was kind of disabled (0 hit points).
- the rhagodessa before Rowyn's rooms (TINH) : Krug (bugbear 2 HD by then) was dropped into negs : he was such a beacon of strength that the others couldn't believe he had dropped for the very 1st time.
- facing Rowyn & Gut tugger (TINH) : Vif was disabled once again (0) in front of Rowyn...
- cave of the 3 rhagodessas (TINH) : Veterini was down to 0 against the rhagodessas and was trying to bluff his death, but fortunately for him, his friends had just arrived to help him, since one of the rhagodessa had seen him breathing.
- room of hanging silk (BG) : Veterini had gone too far, and ripclaw managed to drop him into the negs in 2 rds (he is infected right now).
So far, only the human mage & human cleric have managed not dropping under 1 hit point (IIRC).
|
Our group has finally made it through the Lotus Dragons Guildhall, and thanks in large part to the Dragon Shaman with his aura of healing, no one has actually in fact died. Our human swashbuckler has been dropped to negative hit points on no less than 4 separate occasions in the guildhall, our water genasi ranger hit -9 in a vicious sneak attack from Gut Tugger, and the aventi monk got to -3 from the bugbear zombie.
They've been extremely lucky a number of times. They also managed to subdue instead of kill Gut Tugger, and he was nice enough to show them how to get the treasure without setting off all the traps, since they had killed Rowyn with attacks of opportunity as she was about to drink the potion and leave Gut Tugger for dead.
At any rate, no deaths, but plenty of near misses. If that Dragon Shaman ever drops, they'll be in trouble.
My party's closest call was in Bullywug Gambit. The PCs entered Vanderboren Manor from the sewer entrance just like the bullywugs did, so they started off fighting the chieftain and his lackeys in the basement. The bullywugs upstairs by the dire toad heard the end of the combat, then went and warned Lub-Lub-Torb in the dining hall. They close the doors and wait for the PCs...
The party rogue checks the door and hears something on the other side. So the party's heavy hitter (goliath fighter/monk) decides to charge the door and kick it in. He does - and is immediately tripped by one of the bullywugs, followed up by the others bringing the pain down on him. After the surprise round from this, and a bad initiative roll on the goliath's part for the next round, he was down to -9HP.
The only thing that saved him from death was a cure spell (cast with the reach spell feat) to stabilize him, which was repeated for a couple of rounds as the rest of the party drew the bullywugs off and engaged them.
Of course, my party turned the pain back on me PDQ, because I forgot that the last thing you want to do to a goliath priestess of Kord is to almost kill her husband right in front of her - especially when she knows how to use a large-sized greatsword...
Needless to say, frog legs were on the menu that night... :P
Your Friendly Neighborhood Dalesman
"Bringing Big D**n Justice to the Bad Guys Since 1369 DR"
Started a new group in the AP this weekend. They worked real well with a couple of near misses.
Dwarven Cleric gets knocked to 0, and shoots back up to 9 (of 10)... Half Orc Barbarian drops to 3 (activating his Berserker Rage replacement from PHbII) when fighting the Rhogdessa on the Blue Nixie. Our rogue and monk manage to drop it before it can finish him off. The cleric heals him to 9 (out of 14). In the last fight of the night (the decided to stay and wait for the "buyers", the half-orc dropped to 3 AGAIN... managed to finish them all off, including a leap from the deck of the ship to skewer the last guard on their skiff.
He will have a couple good scars after that night.
BWG: The savage raptor almost killed had everyone on the ground at one point
BWG: The players -split up- upon entering Lavinia's mansion and ALL of them nearly died, the rogue fighting the bullywugs on level 2 in the kitchen, the fighter and druid fighting the huntress and many bullywugs in the dining hall on level one, and the sorceror/fighter and swashbuckler and npc cleric fighting Drevoraz on level 3. The three that were smart enough to stay together VERY narrowly defeated Drevoraz and the bullywug cleric, then went downstairs and saved everyone else. The fight in the basement with the chief again almost TPKed everyone because they were still split. They learned their lesson very well.
SWW: The flotsam ooze almost claimed the lives of the rogue and the druid.
SWW: Sutolore almost destroys everyone until the npc cleric pulls out a scroll of mass resist elements...
SWW: The vine horrors and their vines almost slay the druid, the rogue, and the fighter/sorc.
SWW: The Masher almost slays the druid.
HTBM: The T-Rex eats the fighter and amazingly the rest of the party brings down the T-Rex the next round and very narrowly saves the fighter by cutting him free just before he takes the stomach damage on the T-Rex's turn.
|
|
We once again had 4 people in negative numbers at different times tonight, and if not for the healing aura of the dragon shaman, all would likely have died. As it was, one still did. His story is told in the obits section.
Of the 3 that did survive, one was put down by the phanaton, who came in on the party just as they had managed to take down the big dog things whose names escape me for the moment (I know it starts with a K), and the sneak attack brought down our water shugenja.
The other two were dropped by Ripclaw, who was everything he was cracked up to be. I have no idea how a standard party of 4 PC's at level 3 could hope to survive him if he gets the surprise pounce on them. Fortunately, I run a big party at Lvl 4.
He still dropped the swashbuckler to -6 before he even knew he was in combat, while the aventi barbarian fell to -4 the next round as Ripclaw turned on him. The barbarian was able to crit him the round before, and this had really angered Ripclaw, drawing a full attack back (4 of the 5 attacks hit too -- yikes!)
2 near TPK's. One in SWW with the first assult of the vine horrors. The swordsage was dominating combats before that so I really wanted to make the fight seem desperate. I sent about 12 of On the boat. It was nearly fatal to everyone but they used the elemental gem form TiNH to pull that one out.
Ha! My group also ended up expending that gem against the vine horrors. They'd've been dead for sure otherwise!
|
Aratradeon Nydal (Male Half-Elf Warlock 3/Marshal 2) was reduced from his hale and hearty state (34 HP) to near death (-9) from one massive charge from the Cthulhuraptor in Kraken's Cove. Luckily, he stabilized naturally. The damage would have been much greater (totally lethal) except for Aratradeon's damage reduction [3/Cold Iron]. It would be 7 rounds before the party got anything resembling a chance to save him.
Marshaan (Male Catfolk Fighter 2/Rogue 2) fell from the cliffs when a firey ship came careening at the rope bridge he was climbing down. He fell onto the deck, reducing him to 0 HP. He then proceeded to fall through the ship's deck and into the water. The afore mentioned Half-Elf Warlock leapt off the cliff into the water nearby and dragged him to shore.
That's the near death's so far. We've had three actual deaths, though, so that's some consolation for James and the other Paizo kids.
-JLA