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*** TPK*** One Hour Ago....
Name of PCs: Zeldana (NPC Sor4), Titania (Rog4), Harsk (DMPC Drd4), and Mazrim (Rgr4)
Adventure: Burnt Offerings
Catalyst: Incorporeal + Strength draining touch attacks + create spawn + dark room = OMFG! Why do we not have a cleric?Story: After a tough battle with Yeth Hounds and Nualia we get to the Shadows. The only light source we are using is an Everburning Torch from Lyrie's room. Dim light makes shadows harder to find, so they got the drop on us.
Bad Rolls on the 50% miss chances, Scorching Ray happy-player running the Sorcerer NPC didnt think to try Magic Missiles. Druid powerhouse melee had bad attack rolls, most of the ones that hit missed anyway (did I mention Incorporeal miss chance is icky?).Funniest TPK moment...
The Ranger (Mazrim) survived at 8 Str getting the last Shadow down, falls to his knees and screams "By Erastil, I live!!!".
That round Create Spawn brings up Shadows from the bodies of Zeldana and Titania. Players jaw drops, as he tries to run past them and out the doors. 2 Attacks of opportunity later he becomes a shadow himself.Next stop.... Legacy of Fire, Kingmaker, or Castle Whiterock. Havent decided yet. Im leaning toward Kingmaker for the least amount of prep (no conversion needed).
hehe...gotta love those Strength Draining Incorporeal Undead at 4th level.
I'm curious that you'd want to just stop RotRL...PF2 & 3 are some of my favorite Adventures around, so I'm kinda biased.
-t
(did I mention Incorporeal miss chance is icky?)
Not sure how to break it to you...
Incorporeal: Creatures with the incorporeal condition do
not have a physical body. Incorporeal creatures are immune
to all nonmagical attack forms. Incorporeal creatures take
half damage (50%) from magic weapons, spells, spell-like
effects, and supernatural effects. Incorporeal creatures
take full damage from other incorporeal creatures and
effects, as well as all force effects.
... but incorporeal creatures don't have a miss chance anymore.
(did I mention Incorporeal miss chance is icky?)
Not sure how to break it to you...
Incorporeal: Creatures with the incorporeal condition do
not have a physical body. Incorporeal creatures are immune
to all nonmagical attack forms. Incorporeal creatures take
half damage (50%) from magic weapons, spells, spell-like
effects, and supernatural effects. Incorporeal creatures
take full damage from other incorporeal creatures and
effects, as well as all force effects.... but incorporeal creatures don't have a miss chance anymore.
They were apparently running 3.5 :)
Egads! Thats what I get for assuming.
We have been running PF rules, Ive been pretty much doing conversions on the fly (and using the PF conversion guide) and didnt think to look at the back of the bestiary to see if "Incorporeal" had changed in such a major way. Alot of the hit rolls missed by a significant amount but some of that was also due to excessive STR drain. Not sure the outcome would have been all that different as 3 Shadows with STR drain at 4th level is challenging indeed.
Ive informed my players regardless, and if we continue RotRL ill leave us at half of the strength drain and the ranger at 12 STR (he was at 8 before the two PC Shadows arose.
Kingmaker's overall sandboxy flavor and the possibility of establishing themselves as Lords (and a king) of a new kingdom is enticing though.
Next stop.... Legacy of Fire, Kingmaker, or Castle Whiterock. Havent decided yet. Im leaning toward Kingmaker for the least amount of prep (no conversion needed).hehe...gotta love those Strength Draining Incorporeal Undead at 4th level.
I'm curious that you'd want to just stop RotRL...PF2 & 3 are some of my favorite Adventures around, so I'm kinda biased.
-t
I agree, while the combat was running I kept thinking, wow these Shadows can be tougher than they look on paper, especially considering how easy it was for the new Pathfinder classes to pretty steamroll through thistletop. Except for the Yeth hounds (you would be surprised at just how much of a disadvantage 1 Rogue running away from the Baying of these dogs brought us).
PF1 and 2 are fantastic, the graphic details were abit overdone in PF3 imho, despite being a really solid adventure. I was looking forward to these myself. Starting at 4th level in RotRL isnt too bad as the main plot doesnt really reveal itself, Sandpoint however, just becomes another town and the impact of a certain NPC (dont wanna chance my players reading this) lessens a great deal in PF2 with new characters.
Ill run it all by my crew and see what happens.
Late edit*
We started discussing Kingmaker possibilities after friday nights tpk and they seemed pretty interested though. One player (our Rogue) is an extremist Bard-lover and has been itching to play one again anyway. Im also leaning toward Kingmaker for the conversion-free prep, despite the ease of converting on the fly (hardest part being the enemy NPC class changes). I think discussing Kingmaker that night put us in the sandboxy mood too.
The pure flexibility of Kingmaker is VERY "old school" to me. I can plop some big bad nasties in hex 23-J5 (or wherever) and if they choose to throw down with them ... oops.
And the same token, it adds some "realism" feel to the setting, in that not all encounters are about the same. The ones closer to towns/settlements/Bob's Big Boy are probably 'lower level'.
Then again, you may be Evil and hide (DC 40+ searching to find) Ye Olde Abandoned Crypt just two hexes over. It may be years, decades or centuries before the characters come across it, if ever.
Several campaigns later, especially if/when you're ready to spring Ye Olde Abandoned Crypt on the group, they happen upon the place ... and die in droves.
The flexibility is pure awesome IMO - being able to carve your legacy out of the boonies has long been an element of the game. Seeing it formalized is just ... slobber-inducing.
^_^
Kill zem, kill zem all!
The pure flexibility of Kingmaker is VERY "old school" to me.
The flexibility is pure awesome IMO - being able to carve your legacy out of the boonies has long been an element of the game. Seeing it formalized is just ... slobber-inducing.
^_^
Kill zem, kill zem all!
Im an older gamer too (age 40), this is what I miss most of all. The flexibilty of expanding the campaign as big as you want within an AP is "slobber-inducing" indeed. It reminds me of the openess in D1-2, and D3 ("Descent into the Depths of the Earth" and "Vault of the Drow") in the sense that the DM can add to the underdark exploration (D1-2) and/or the Erelhei-Cinlu (D3) and still follow the main plot as needed. Or the beginning wilderness portion of S4 (a personal fave) before the party reaches the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. Very old-school indeed.
Third PC death of the campaign for us :)
Name of PC: Pippen Tasker
Class/Level: Half-Elf Rogue 5 / Assassin 2
Adventure: Hook-Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Xanesha's spear to the face
Story: The party hadn't encountered Xanesha in Skinsaw Murders, primarily due to the fact that when they got to the Shadow Clock, the fight against the Scarecrow went so badly, they decided that it was a bad idea. So they reported everything to the party Knights contacts in the city watch, and let them deal with it. The watch demolished the clock, but Xanesha got away. Xanesha then assumed the appearance of a travelling lady and followed the party (they all travelled by ferry) to Turtleback Ferry, and then met up with Lucretia at the fort.
The party, after rescuing the Black Arrows, snuck into Fort Rannick via the tunnels (and set fire to the barracks), and encountered Lucretia first. After talking to her for a while and her bragging about their friends being dead (the Black Arrows were staging a distraction), they then killed her and headed upstairs. None of the Ogres on the main level of the fort gave the group too many problems, and they went outside to check on the diversion.
They ran into several Ogres outside, and while starting to deal with those, they saw (and assumed rightly) Xanesha flying outside the keep, firing spells at unseen figures below. The party sorceress flew out and got Xanesha's attention, who didn't have spells to attack the sorceress at long range, so she dimension doored back to the keep.
Xanesha moved out and attempted to attack the Knight (who'd used his challenges to get ALL the ogres attention) and after not having much luck there (he was buffed with something like 29 AC, 33 vs giants), so turned on the party assassin. (who'd been happily sneak attacking one of the Ogre Barbarians via a flank with the Knight)
She only had one attack against him, but thats all she needed. She had one crit, meaning something like 6d6+27 damage, rolling 51 damage, taking him to fairly healthy to dead in one hit. We took it that she managed to thrust her spear straight through his head.
As she then started to pummel on the party druid, the sorceress (now back on the scene) called everyone together and used a scroll of teleport to get everyone out. (We use a variation on Teleport that allows more people to be teleported at the expense of range)
Once out, the druid reincarnated Pippen as a dwarf.
First PC death
Name of PC: Telm
Class/Level: Elf Ranger 5
Adventure: Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: Suicide Haunt
Story: The party was exploring the house, getting freaked out and paranoid by all of the strange things going on. The elf, who was assigned the Insanity Haunt due to previous random choices, fails his will save to go and attack himself with the shard of wood. He took the damaged and failed his Fort save, so insta-death. Nobody realized what was going on fast enough to stop him.
He was reincarnated as a Aasimar(rolled 100 on the check, and I made a quick expanded chart), and is now in debt to the druid who reincarnated him.
On a side note this was just after the elf was forced to marry Shayliss due to her being pregnant. The joke is we'll know if the baby is his if it has pointed ears.
First PC Death (Lots of Close Calls)
Not exactly a ROTR canon death, as it happened during a side trek.
Name: Jakk Windwalker
Class: Halfelf Spellblade 2/ Rogue 1
Adventure: Between Burnt Offerings and Skinsaw
Catalyst: Drowning
Story: After Thistletop, a few of the characters are still only 3rd level (slow Progression) so I've tossed in a few side treks. One involves salvaging a ship that crashed mysteriously off the coast of Sandpoint.
Well, the heroes explored the first few levels of the ship, and fought a giant crab. (The ship is nose down in the water at a 45 degree angle, so the front of each level is submerged). Jakk (no levels in Swimming and a STR of 10) took several points of CON damage from drowning and fighting underwater. After the fight, with a temp CON of 4!!!, he decides to wander off and explore the lower levels by himself while the rest of the party investigates the purple Osirion sarcophagas that is radiating evil...(On an upper deck).
By himself, he tries to dive into the flooded bilge to search for loot...fails and then critically fails the swim checks. Then he starts taking drowning damage and can't swim back to the surface before taking enough damage to fall unconcious and drown. (He also fails his FORT saves...)
I normally feel bad when a character dies, but when you split the party, wander off on your own without telling anyone and then, while suffering from CON damage, put yourself in situations where you don't have the skill or the Fortitude saves to pass the multitude of FORT tests...well, sometimes fate is fate...
So, Jakk drowned and died. Eventually, the party found his corpse and hauled him back to shore (where Shayliss, one of his girlfriends, moaned and wept.)
We played out the afterlife (waiting in line to see Pharasma while the entities from the Maelstrom and Elysium circled around trying to judge his soul's destination). And he decided NOT to get reincarnated back from the dead.
Luckily, he wanted to be buried up near Wolf's Ear...which is where the rest of the side-trek is going to take place.
Now I just have to get his new character into the group. (Lizardman Inquisitor 2)
Ken Varisian Cleric 1/Paladin3
Adventure: Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: Ghouls!!!
Story:
First PC Death (Lots of Close Calls)
Not exactly a ROTR canon death, as it happened during a side trek.
Name: Jakk Windwalker
Class: Halfelf Spellblade 2/ Rogue 1
Adventure: Between Burnt Offerings and Skinsaw
Catalyst: DrowningStory: After Thistletop, a few of the characters are still only 3rd level (slow Progression) so I've tossed in a few side treks. One involves salvaging a ship that crashed mysteriously off the coast of Sandpoint.
Well, the heroes explored the first few levels of the ship, and fought a giant crab. (The ship is nose down in the water at a 45 degree angle, so the front of each level is submerged). Jakk (no levels in Swimming and a STR of 10) took several points of CON damage from drowning and fighting underwater. After the fight, with a temp CON of 4!!!, he decides to wander off and explore the lower levels by himself while the rest of the party investigates the purple Osirion sarcophagas that is radiating evil...(On an upper deck).
By himself, he tries to dive into the flooded bilge to search for loot...fails and then critically fails the swim checks. Then he starts taking drowning damage and can't swim back to the surface before taking enough damage to fall unconcious and drown. (He also fails his FORT saves...)
I normally feel bad when a character dies, but when you split the party, wander off on your own without telling anyone and then, while suffering from CON damage, put yourself in situations where you don't have the skill or the Fortitude saves to pass the multitude of FORT tests...well, sometimes fate is fate...
So, Jakk drowned and died. Eventually, the party found his corpse and hauled him back to shore (where Shayliss, one of his girlfriends, moaned and wept.)
We played out the afterlife (waiting in line to see Pharasma while the entities from the Maelstrom and Elysium circled around trying to judge his soul's destination). And he decided NOT to get reincarnated back from the dead.
Luckily, he wanted to be buried up near Wolf's Ear...which...
Update...
Instead of taking a Lizardman Inquisistor, Jakk got reincarnated (mysteriously...they haven;t figured out how yet.)
Of course, he comes back as a goblin...
This has led to some strange encounters, as he re-met the party as they were on thier way to bury his half-elven body. He's still not sure how he made it back (yes, the GP has been removed from the party...they just haven;t figured out where yet) or who sent him...
And of course, how is Shayliss going to deal with the fact that her love is back...but hes a goblin...
And, one fo the players doesnlt want to give Jakk back his gear and money....
Another animal companion bought it last night in my game
Name: CokeThree
Class: Wolf Animal Companion to Ammeretti the Druid
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Ogre Hook to the Snout
The groups second assault on Fort Rannick was via the roof, flown in invisibly and down the tower. The first two ogres were dispatched silently, and the group stumbled into the room with Dorella and Hookmaw Kreeg, and combat ensued.
CokeThree and the (newly) dwarf rogue moved to Hookmaw, catching him flatfooted, and tripping him up. As Hookmaw stood up (drawing AOO's as he did) he took a single attack against CokeThree, critted, and nailed the wolfs snout to the floor with his ogre hook.
The druid now has a Dire Wolf, called Choke. This now brings my game to three character deaths and three animal companion deaths :)
Sehven Ulfen Duskblade 5
Adventure: Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: Faceless Stalkers
Story:
Name: Jakk the Goblin (Reincarnated from Jakk the HAlfelf...see above)
Class: Goblin Rogue 1/ Wizard 1
Adventure: Between BO and SSM
Cause of Death: Forest Worm
Basically, this was part of a side quest to bury the body of old Jakk...the party encountered a Forest Worm (pretty much same stats as an owlbear) on their way to investigate strange happenings in Wolf's Ear.
It won surprise and scored a crit on Jakk in the opening round. Drew Crit card for Triple Damage. d6 +4 = 3d6 +12. I rolled in front of the players, using the d6's from the Q-Workshop ROTR, COTC, and SD dice sets. Roll the d6's and...Rune of Wrath, Crown of Fangs, Drow Rune... (for those of you without the dice, that's 6, 6, and 6...he got BEASTed, as we used to say...) For a total of 30 points of damage.
Thaat drops poor Jakk down to within 1 point of negative Con. The wizard failed to heal/ stabilize and Jakk blew the CON check....dead goblin....
At least this time it wasn't Jakk's fault...
No more reincarnation, now he has a Bugbear Monk...)from the Windsong Abbey...)
Name: Enga
Class: Kobold Barbarian 12
Adventure: Sins of the Saviors
Cause of Death: Arkrhyst "Freezemaw"
Having been Charmed, hired and then kept on retainer by the party after Fortress of the Stone Giants, Enga was with the party when they gained the first key, which woke Arkrhyst from his slumber. Unfortunately for the dragon, the group of seven had been warned that his lair was in the region, and spotted him ahead of time. Fortunately for them, they had little in the way of flight and few could hit the dragon. The party Arcane Trickster cast Fly on Enga, one of the few party members who would stand a chance against him, and she took flight. Freezemaw, spotting the kobold flew down and bit her, beginning to carry away the kobold in his maw in order to finish her alone.
Enga, unable to free herself, decided that if she was going to die she was going to take the dragon with her. She removed a bead from her Necklace of Fireballs and tossed the rest down Freezemaw's throat, tossing the other bead down after it and thus detonating all of them at once within the dragon's throat. The explosion sent her flying from his mouth with a huge number of teeth. Barely alive, Freezemaw blasted Enga with his breath weapon, killing her instantly and sending her plummeting to the ground. As he retreated to his cave the other party members pursued him and sent him to his doom, just as the cleric brought Enga back with a Breath of Life spell and the words. "Welcome back to the world of the living."
Every party member volunteered to replace the Necklace of Fireballs. As the player of the cleric said. "That was the best use of 5400 gp I've seen!"
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Name: Raeford
Class: Human Evoker 7 (NPC hireling)
Adventure: Fortress of the Stone Giants
Cause of Death: Stone Giants (what else?;) )
Raeford got hired on by the party as they were in route to the Storval Plateau. He received the Necklace of Fireballs from the party as his cut when the party took out the kobold barbarian (they entered via te Deathweb tunnels).
As they caused chaos in the lower chambers, the party found Conna and got a layout of the rest of the caverns as well as finding out where the Sandpoint prisoners were. He led the first group to the small tunnels and came back to help with others, finding a group of stone giants led by the general confronting the dwarf ranger/bard. Unfortunately, Raeford did not understand giant or he would have understood the bluff the dwarf was pulling worked. Instead he flung a bead at a group of giants and was quickly run down and smashed.
The party druid later found remnants of his robes in the dragon room while scouting for him and the dwarf ranger (who has since had his beard shaved for the general's collection, been tortured and branded).
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Name: Nargon
Class: Human Ranger 5
Adventure: Skinsaw Murders
Cause of Death: Xanesha
Name: Xerthan
Class: Half Orc Monk 5
Adventure: Skinsaw Murders
Cause of Death: Xanesha
Fight from hell. These two characters both dropped twice before being killed outright. Both were killed by spear attacks after she charmed the rogue who managed to disarm her with a whip and got her spear back.
The party cleric was dropped into the negatives at least 6 times. One of the rogues dropped once. Deep slumber took out the non elves (there were three out of 6 PCs with elf blood). And it took the party FOREVER to score a hit, even without giving her the shield spell prior to combat.
The combat ended with three PCs standing (the cleric back into the negs as well as the rogue), with 1 hp (wizard), 7 hp (rogue) and 18 hp (bard) remaining. The last rogue standing succeeded in a bow shot and she fled.
Nargon decided not to come back, and Xerthan may want to be raised (we'll find out soon).
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Name of PC: Skye
Class/Level: Halfling Rogue 6
Adventure: Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: Negative Channeling
Story: So there the PCs were taking on the skinsaw cultists, because they come upon them in large #s (10+ as a group) the cultists didn't channel due to allies around them. They also tried to deal with the PCs in groups confident that the PCs couldn't take them in their #s. But the PCs with a lot of miraculous luck manage to survive and get down to just the Judge, who channels them down. Now the PCs are very low, the healer and sky go down to another channel while the monk is down to one HP. he grapples the judge, who thinks he can easily slip out (which is why he didn't just channel while grappled) and fails getting pinned. Out of desperation the PC asks if there's something he can do other than just try to maintain the pin. He asks about a choke hold, and I tell him that he can try and get the judge in a choke hold if he takes a -10 penalty to his CMB (-5 after maintaining bonus) he actually succeeds and the judge fails his con check to maintain consciousness (per suffocation rules). however it takes 3 rounds to choke the judge to death, and then another round to heal the healer, and in that time skye bled to death.
Name of PC: Brydon
Class/Level: Human Ranger 11
Adventure: Fortress of the Stone Giants
Catalyst: POOF!
Story: In a grinding battle against the Might Mok, the cleric fell a bit behind on the healing and the giant hating, bane wielding Ranger did a bit too much damage. Mok countered with a disintigrate and Poof, no more Ranger.
Of course, while this happened his kidnapped wife Shayless was giving birth up on Mok's stage area.
She's probably going to need a good therapist.
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Where: At Nualia's Lair, on the lower levels of Thistletop.
Maxim
Human Fighter 4
Zoot
Gnome Sorcerer 4
Mr. Oswald
Gnome Bard 4
Zar
Gnome Cleric 4
Chester
Human Rogue 4
Catalyst: Nualia + Yeth Hounds + No more resources = TPK!
Having fought through pretty much all of Thistletop, our heroes open one door too many. Rather than resting and recovering (as would be wise, seeing as we were 3 levels into the dungeon, and had next to nothing left), we open the one door with real dangerous enemies behind it.
Both the Hounds and Nualia rolled crazy on Initiative, beating Maxim, and then beating Maxim to -6 on the 1st round of combat.
After that, the rest became academic. Zar and Oswald both became panicked by the Hounds' bay, Zar fleeing at top speed for 5 (!) rounds, and Oswald curling up in an ineffectual ball for 3.
Between the 3 enemies, I don't think they rolled less than a natural 15 on their attacks, and shredded the entire party (sans Zar) with tooth, claw, and blade. Zoot, heroically, managed to tag Nualia with a Nat-20, Nat-19 Shocking Splash (Electricity 1d3 cantrip) followed by a 3d6 Shocking Grasp Wand charge, dropping her just before dropping himself. The Shocking Grasp attack was delivered at exactly 0 HP, putting him back unconscious after delivering her death blow.
With 2 wounded Yeth Hounds gnawing on his friends, Zar had a tough decision. Coming back with Ripnugget's lizard mount, he attempted to save us, doing some minor damage with a silver morningstar before being bitten into oblivion.
Ameiko, the Greatsword-wielding fighter (me)
Ailyn (or whatever her name is)-the Wizard we captured and "turned" in thistletop
An unnamed human rogue
Mr. Oswald's identical twin brother, out to avenge his brother's death
And an unnamed Dwarven Monk.
The rogue may or may not stay, depending on Zar's player - there was some talk of "reincarnation insurance" from his family...thus, the rogue may be a single-focus character intending to bring him back and then bounce.
Name of PC: Blodox
Class/Level: Monk/ 7
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: An ogre hook
Story: The party and their NPC allies were engaged in a pitched battle against the Kreeg ogres. The ogres from the second floor came up behind the party and the monk turned to meet them. Unfortunately, he was left unsupported by the party, though it's uncertain what they could have done to change anything. First hit from the Kreeg that came around the corner was a crit and the monk took over 50 points of damage when he only had 6 left.
Name of PC: Brother Beregon
Class/Level: Cleric/ 7
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: An ogre hook
Story: After the Kreeg chieftain succumbed to a Suggestion that he kill every ogre he could see and did just that, he was left with only the party cleric in his line of sight. So he charged and crit the cleric, causing a total of 99 points of damage with one hit. The party did, in the end, get their bloody revenge against the Kreeg chieftain.
Name of PC: Rolfsnudder
Class/Level: Fighter / 6
Adventure: Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: Certain Mrs. X in Clock Tower
Story: The party and Belor Hemlock ambushed Xanesha in Clock Tower but realized that they have trapped themselves in and enemy is lot more dangerous than they believed. Rolfsnudder went to negatives but got up but them Xanesha critted the poor half-orc and done enough damage to kill him outright. Couple of rounds later he killed Hemlock with critical hit but other two members managed to do enough damage and Xanesha retreated. One dispel magic and one dead lamia matriarch and lots of cleaning duty.
Both casualties were raised using PC's money.
Name of PC: Mystic
Class/Level: Sor 7
Adventure: HMM
Catalyst: Lumpy headed Crowfood
Story: She was in the wrong place at the wrong time, she was the first to whackhim with solid damage, through a magic missle, and get critted with an ogre hook. Reinacarnated as a Halfling. She's still new to RPing so I'm going to sit down with her char and give her some pointers on spells to cast precombat (Mage Armor, Mirror Image, ETC.) She has some good defensive spells... just isn't using them.
Name of PC: Mystic
Class/Level: Sor 7
Adventure: HMM
Catalyst: Lumpy headed Crowfood
Story: She was in the wrong place at the wrong time, she was the first to whackhim with solid damage, through a magic missle, and get critted with an ogre hook. Reinacarnated as a Halfling. She's still new to RPing so I'm going to sit down with her char and give her some pointers on spells to cast precombat (Mage Armor, Mirror Image, ETC.) She has some good defensive spells... just isn't using them.
The monk in my group tried to go toe to toe with Crowfood and it didn't go at all well. He ran up, hit him once, then was hit back twice. I missed verifying the critical by 1 and the monk still took 42 points of damage. He had 44. It has had a dramatic effect on his view of combat.
The druids companion bought it again last night, only one session on from the last one...
Name: Choke
Class: Wolf Animal Companion to Ammeretti the Druid
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Black Magga
The group saw Black Magga come through the breach in Skulls Crossing, and followed her to Turtleback Ferry, where they found her wedged up against the village church, attempting to eat a few villagers.
They stepped into help, and practically the whole party got whacked by her Breath of Madness ability, only two wasn't caught in it, all failed their saves.
Confusion took hold, and Choke went straight for Black Magga, who struck him three times and killing him outright.
Choke was succeeded by ChokeTwo, who almost bought it to Grazuuls military fork later in the session.
Three PC deaths and Four Companion deaths so far... the druid is starting to feel victimised :)
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Name: Forson
Class: Paladin 5
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Biggun (Huge funnel web spider)
The party came in and opened the "cells". All but one of the party failed their perception check and Biggun ran up biting away. Most of the party took some amount of STR damage. The wizard dropped to 1 STR and collapsed under the weight of his minor gear. The rogues both dropped to less than 8 STR and the cleric dropped to 10 STR. The paladin took one hit, failed both saves and dropped to 9 STR, shifting his burden to a heavy load. He still stood up to the spider and was bitten again several rounds later, failing both saves again, dropping to a 4 STR from the first failed save, collapsing in a mass of plate mail and gear. The following round, following the next failed save, he dropped to 0 STR and died where he lay.
Fortunately, the location allowed me to add in his replacement character, a gnome barbarian who was recently grabbed by the big nasties.
Name: Khazen Dren
Class: Eldritch Knight 12th level total
Adventure: Sins of the Saviors
Catalyst: Ordikon
Choosing the greed wing first, the party eventually made it to Ordikon. They tried to pass themselves off as followers of Karzoug. After some questions from Ordikon, the mage realized they were fakes and attacked. He started off with a disintegrate at Khazen, a fellow transmuter. After a 20 on the attack roll the 48d6 damage resulted in 178 which was 73 points more than he had.
The party did kill off Ordikon and saved a monk from being a goldfish.
Name: Forson
Class: Paladin 5
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Biggun (Huge funnel web spider)The party came in and opened the "cells". All but one of the party failed their perception check and Biggun ran up biting away. Most of the party took some amount of STR damage. The wizard dropped to 1 STR and collapsed under the weight of his minor gear. The rogues both dropped to less than 8 STR and the cleric dropped to 10 STR. The paladin took one hit, failed both saves and dropped to 9 STR, shifting his burden to a heavy load. He still stood up to the spider and was bitten again several rounds later, failing both saves again, dropping to a 4 STR from the first failed save, collapsing in a mass of plate mail and gear. The following round, following the next failed save, he dropped to 0 STR and died where he lay.
Fortunately, the location allowed me to add in his replacement character, a gnome barbarian who was recently grabbed by the big nasties.
Oof...
You can't die from strength damage... !
If the amount of ability damage you have
taken equals or exceeds your ability score, you immediately
fall unconscious until the damage is less than your ability
score. The only exception to this is your Constitution score.
If the damage to your Constitution is equal to or greater
than your Constitution score, you die.
Only specific creatures, such as shadows, have the ability to kill characters by dealing strength damage.
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Name: Forson
Class: Paladin 5
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Biggun (Huge funnel web spider)The party came in and opened the "cells". All but one of the party failed their perception check and Biggun ran up biting away. Most of the party took some amount of STR damage. The wizard dropped to 1 STR and collapsed under the weight of his minor gear. The rogues both dropped to less than 8 STR and the cleric dropped to 10 STR. The paladin took one hit, failed both saves and dropped to 9 STR, shifting his burden to a heavy load. He still stood up to the spider and was bitten again several rounds later, failing both saves again, dropping to a 4 STR from the first failed save, collapsing in a mass of plate mail and gear. The following round, following the next failed save, he dropped to 0 STR and died where he lay.
Fortunately, the location allowed me to add in his replacement character, a gnome barbarian who was recently grabbed by the big nasties.
Oof...
** spoiler omitted **
Ooo, I'll have a happy player ... or maybe not ... I'll give him the call on that one. As the game was called at the end of the combat it should work out either way.
can't believe I missed that one in the rule set. I've had a couple of my characters die from loss of STR in campaigns back in the day (apparently a house rule), hence the assumption, but you know what they say about assuming ...
Brother Kenrick Cleric 6 of Sarenrae (as well as 4 town guards and 3 adepts of Abadar)
Adventure: Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: Scarecrow of DOOM!!!!
Story:
Name of PC: Jalax Argon
Class/Level: Ranger/Rogue 6/2
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Pappa Kreeg in Fort
Story: Party tried to sneak their way to leader of ogres and just kill it[and some how got in their way]. Things went wrong when Jalax just waited ogre leader to come [taking full defense but still] and Jaagrath charged doing 40 points of damage. Then party attacks and rangers player and cleric doesn't notice thta ONE ATTACK made 40 points of damage. Then Jaagrath [near to death I have to say] attacks twice to Jalax and does over 65 points of damage. One dead ranger and soon after one dead ogre leader. Party panics and retreats to tunnels below the Fort.
After finishing the Fort, other two members left to Janderhoff to raise Jalax. Two PCs killed and this is just a near half way of the campaing. This time it wasn't overpowered enemy, just plain player stupidity.
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I have been GMing our game since November, and we finally reached the Shadow Clock on Friday. First deaths.
Name of PC: Barley
Class/Level: Animal Companion
Adventure: The Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: The Scarecrow Crits
and
Name of PC: Gorvak
Class/Level: Cleric of Torag 6
Adventure: The Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: The Scarecrow Strikes Again
Story: Even with some information about what to expect at the Shadow Clock from Ironbrair, the party failed to plan ahead. When confronted with the Scarecrow, Tamaze, our ranger, and her firepelt cougar Barley charged the brute. Knowing that his Artificer's Touch would be a great help against the just-identified golem and charged as well, standing next to the cougar. Then the Scarecrow goes: Power Attack and Cleave.
The first hit Gorvak for 20+ damage. The second hit Barley, and with the crit dealt 96 points of damage as the cougar's head flew from his body, leaving a space between the characters.
On his turn, Gorvak, trying to prevent the Scaracrow from escaping, 5'-steps next to Tamaze, which sets up the Scarecrow: Power Attack and Cleave. Needless to say, Gorvak didn't last. Even worse, the sorcerer Pais raised Gorvak with the party's only scroll of raise dead, only to have Gorvak fail his save and be turned to stone shortly after...
Two deaths from last Saturday...
Name of PC: Pippen Tasker
Class/Level: Dwarf Rogue 5 / Assassin 4
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Ogres at the Hook Mountain Clanhold
The group had made their way to the clanhold and was able to get close to the Ogres on guard thanks to the heavy snowfall. Pippen snuck up and when violence started, Pippen attemped to death attack one of the ogres. He managed to sneak the ogre fine, but it easily saved the death attack.
The ogre drew his ogre hook, turned and critted Pippen, killing him instantly. Pippen was raised a little later by the party cleric
Name of PC: ChokeTwo
Class/Level: Dire Wolf, Animal Companion to Ameretti the Druid
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Stone Giant bodyguard to Barl Breakbones
Once combat started with Barl and his guard, Barl and the party sorceress started exchanging spells. ChokeTwo and the party Knight moved up to deal with the bodyguard. ChokeTwo managed to get the guards attention and didn't have the hit points or the armour class to deal with a full attack from the giant.
ChokeThree followed...
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Name of PC: Elsbyth
Class/Level: Half-elf Paladin of Iomedae 6
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: BOGGARDS!
Story: During the party's travel to Fort Rannick, I decided to add in some encounters, both combat and roleplay, to make the travel more interesting.
During a night camped along the Yondabakari River, a boggard raiding party attacked the PCs: five boggards, a boggard barbarian, and a boggard witch.
Well, the PCs responded quickly to the assault, and the paladin took on the barbarian herself. It was a brutal fight, both devastating each other with attacks. Suddenly, the boggard witch cast lightning bolt at a line of PCs, and Elsbyth failed her save. She went from 3 hp to -24.
Luckily, the PCs used a scroll of reincarnate to bring her back. I rolled the dice and she came back as a dwarf. Considering that the character has been in love with her dwarf best friend since the start of the campaign, this worked out better than any of us could have imagined.
Alex Shaonti Cleric 6
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Shock to the system!
Story:
Vale Temros NPC Black Arrow Ranger2/Fighter 4
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Shock to the system!
Story:
Name of PC: Alandra
Class/Level: Elven Sorcerer 12
Adventure: Sins of the Saviors
Catalyst: Vraxeris Simulacrum
Story: The party (much smaller than normal with only 3 members present) entered the Shimmering Veils. An NPC had informed them of the existence of the Mirrors within, and they proceeded to smash mirrors with their eyes closed in the hopes of avoiding fighting copies of themselves. This warned the simulacrum, that promptly attacked the party fighter as he rounded the corner with Empowered Scorching Rays. His near-death inspired Alandra to go forward to his aid, casting Chain Lightning to damage them. The fighter retreated, and the cleric summoned a Stone Giant to smash mirrors and inadvertently brought two opposing stone giants onto the field. The simulacrum hit Alandra with two Ray of Enfeeblement spells and two Scorching Ray spells, nearly dropping her with the Strength penalty alone and half killing her. She dropped her backpack and went invisible with Greater Invisibility while the others tried to deal with the Stone Giants. Unable to see her, the simulacrum each cast an Empowered Fireball into the wall behind her, unfortunately hitting her and the entire party with a quadruple wave of fire. This killed Alandra outright and nearly killed the other party members, while destroying the stone giants. (Nearly 230 damage before saves.) The fighter, under a Haste spell, rushed forward to retrieve Alandra's body and the party beat a hasty retreat, while the cleric cast Breath of Life and barely returned the sorceress to life in time.
First PC Death (Lots of Close Calls)
Not exactly a ROTR canon death, as it happened during a side trek.
Name: Jakk Windwalker
Class: Halfelf Spellblade 2/ Rogue 1
Adventure: Between Burnt Offerings and Skinsaw
Catalyst: DrowningStory: After Thistletop, a few of the characters are still only 3rd level (slow Progression) so I've tossed in a few side treks. One involves salvaging a ship that crashed mysteriously off the coast of Sandpoint.
Well, the heroes explored the first few levels of the ship, and fought a giant crab. (The ship is nose down in the water at a 45 degree angle, so the front of each level is submerged). Jakk (no levels in Swimming and a STR of 10) took several points of CON damage from drowning and fighting underwater. After the fight, with a temp CON of 4!!!, he decides to wander off and explore the lower levels by himself while the rest of the party investigates the purple Osirion sarcophagas that is radiating evil...(On an upper deck).
By himself, he tries to dive into the flooded bilge to search for loot...fails and then critically fails the swim checks. Then he starts taking drowning damage and can't swim back to the surface before taking enough damage to fall unconcious and drown. (He also fails his FORT saves...)
Since when does drowning deal con damage?
Unfortunately, our latest casualty was the campaign itself. Our DM had his vehicle broken into at the parking lot of his workplace. Obviously not a high-level rogue, the thief left the car stereo and instead made off with the bag on the floor in the back seat, which held most of his gaming books, the RotRL AP, and several of the characters.
Hopefully once things have been replaced we'll be able to resurrect the campaign and carry on.
Had a big session and a rough one at that, a record 5 pcs and 2 npcs in one night that wasn't a tpk. 3 of the deaths were the same player sadly. Twice of which was the exact same character. ><
Kareef Shaonti warmage 7
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Massive longbow of Minktuck Kreeg
Story:
Kataar Shaonti Warmage 7 aswell as Jarkrados and Shelelu (NPCs)
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Very nasty encounter
Story:
Barli Bladebear Dwarf Favored Soul of Cayden Cailean 8
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Very Nasty encounter
Story:
Kataar Shaonti Warmage 7 (AGAIN!)
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: One bad Magga
Story:
Xanaphia Half-elf Druid 7
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: One bad Magga
Story:
Had a big session and a rough one at that, a record 5 pcs and 2 npcs in one night that wasn't a tpk. 3 of the deaths were the same player sadly. Twice of which was the exact same character. ><
I guess that's why it's called the "Hook Mountain Massacre", not the "Hook Mountain Fluffy Pillow Fight". ;-)
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Name of PC: Jairo
Class/Level: Gnome Rogue 6
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Muck Graul
Story:
The party did not attempt to attack the creature, instead attempting to flee the room. Jairo decided to continue to the door, attacking and making 5' steps to get there.
She reached the door, but decided to check for traps instead of bolting in through a door in a trap laden house. She was then hit and dropped to -5. Enter ...
Name of PC: Vermes
Class/Level: Human Cleric 6
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Muck Graul
Story:
The rest of the party began attacking Muck and destroyed him, but not before the cleric and rogue had been dragged in and dropped below their Con from the digestive enzymes.
Just started SSM and we've had a few deaths.
Because of the disparity between character levels (several players missed several adventures) we had a small side trek to Wolf's Ear.
Death #1
Name of PC: Jakk
Class/Level: Halfelf Rogue 1/Spellblade 3
Adventure: Burnt Offerings
Catalyst: Swimming
Story: Investigating a ship that crashed offshore. They fought a giant crab in the half submerged ship and then had to recover and explore. Jakk (no swimming skill) kept failing his swim checks, taking damage. Then he discovered the bilge and, nearly dead, decided to go swimming in the sunbmerged bilge. The party found his drowned corpse several minutes later when they discovered him missing.
Death #2
Name of PC: Jakk
Class/Level: Goblin Rogue 1/Spellblade 3
Adventure: Burnt Offerings Sidetrek
Catalyst: Carrion Worm
Story: Jakk got reincarnated as a goblin (much to the amusement of the party). He got injured during a battle and then went off with some of the others to explore in the woods, explicitly refusing healing. With only 18 hp left, they encountered a Carrion Worm. (Similar stat block to Owlbear). The creature hit, did a crit, confirmed, and picked a Crit card that tripled damage. At 1d6+4 that became 3d6+12. I rolled the dice (I use Q-workshop's ROTR, COCT, and SD dice for my PF games) and it came up: Rune of Wrath, Crown of Fangs, and Drow Rune. (For those of you without the cool Pathfinder Dice, that's 6 6 and 6...) 18+12 = 30 damage. Jakk failed his stabilize test and died again. (Though the dice roll was cool.)
Name of PC: Yabaday (Jakk's Player)
Class/Level: Bugbear Monk 1
Adventure: Burnt Offerings Sidetrek to Wolf's Ear
Catalyst: Greatsword
Story: Jakk's character gave up on Jakk and rolled up a new character. He wanted to play a bugbear, so we let him take a bugbear with 1 level of monk (that's 4 HD and some NICE stat bonuses). The discipline of monk training explained why the bugbear (raised from a cub) would have the personality to get along with the "good races".
For the Wolf's Ear adventure, I modified the old Against the Cult of the Reptile God adventure. It has a nicely fleshed out town and a good, paranoid feel, with half of the town knowing about a secret the other half does not...perfect for Wolf's Ear.
Well, after defeating almost all of the baddies from the town, the party was recovering, as most of them were badly wounded. But Yabaday wanted to go see the mayor about buying or selling the abandoned inn in town. Well, the mayor's evil bodyguard saw him coming and assumed that he was there to kill the bodyguard (a very nasty fellow who'd already had words with the party.)
Everyone else told Yabaday to wait and heal with the rest fo the party.
Nope!
He got surprised and cut down with two turns of vicious blows from a greatsword. (He only had a few HP when the fight started and the bodyguard did one crit...)
Yabaday got reincarnated as a halforc when the party got back to Sandpoint, though they haven't been able to remove the negative levels yet...
Death #4
Name of PC: Kitt
Class/Level: Halfelf Rogue 3/Ranger 1
Adventure: Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: Ghouls in the cornfield
Story: The heroes get into the cornfields, bringing their horses and cart with them...during the battle, the horses bolt and take off with the party's gear.
After a nasty battle against several ghouls (and after shooting one of the innocent farmers strapped to a scarecrow post) Kitt was wounded, but decided to take off in a chase after the fleeing horses.
He ran into the cornfields alone while the rest of the party was healing and recovering. Four ghouls found him and 12 attacks later he was dead and partially eaten...
He decided against reincarnation.
FYI-If you can get your hands on Against the Cult of the Reptile God, it would make a good generic town adventure...
Gaunga Garundi warmage 8
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Longbow critical on Skull's Crossing
Story:
Name of PC: Kathidrel
Class/Level: Elf Transmuter 16
Adventure: Spires of Xin-Shalast
Catalyst: Draconic Attention
Story:
Unfortunately, Ghlorofaex was alerted as well, and seeing a 'rival', focused thunderous breath repeatedly on Kathidrel. Despite protection from electricity and resist electricity, and (in dragon form) the highest hp in the party, he was reduced to a mere 2 hp. He then fled a bit, but after Synok was killed (see below), he returned to drop a horrid wilting on the dragon.
Not quite dead, the next bolt of lightning dropped Kathidrel to -27, three beyond his enhanced constitution score. A breath of life in the nick of time retrieved him from the beyond, though not conscious, just before the dragon was slain by the ranger's holy ranseur.
Name of PC: Synok Blantish
Class/Level: Half-elf Rogue/Liberator 10/6
Adventure: Spires of Xin-Shalast
Catalyst: Draconic Vengeance
Story:
A critted bite and other attacks dropped him a lot, and a failed save vs. the breath dropped him down, but an immediate breath of life and heal brought him back from the edge.
Chris Mwangi warmage 8
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Barl Breakbone's Big nasty Earthbreaker crit(tm)
Story:
Errata: My post two up, it was not Synok who died and got breathed, it was Tyska, Ranger 16. (they were standing right beside each other, and the breath of life came on the next initiative, apologies to Synok!).
Name of PC: Geldon
Class/Level: Dwarf Cleric 16
Adventure: Spires of Xin-Shalast
Catalyst: The Might (and aim) of a Runelord
Story:
Geldon, after stepping through, decided to ready to cast his Holy Aura after the last person stepped through the gate.
Karzoug didn't wait for that, and blasted down his meteor swarm at four separate targets. On Geldon, he struck a 20, followed by another 20, which we call as a threat to kill, followed by a 3, which unfortunately confirmed the *touch* attack to instantly slay Geldon on the first round of battle.
Fortunately, Glim the gnome clr/rog, was standing *directly* beside him, and used a scroll of breath of life for a quick 40 heal, followed by Geldon's own heal spell to get back to full.
Name of PC: Synok
Class/Level: Half-elf Rogue/Liberator 10/7
Adventure: Spires of Xin-Shalast
Catalyst: A Stitch in Time
Story:
Name of PC: Kathidrel
Class/Level: Elf Transmuter 16
Adventure: Spires of Xin-Shalast
Catalyst: He was but a learner
Story:
Unfortunately, Karzoug, master of transmutation, does not care for pretenders to the art. With a quick telekinesis, he thrust Kathidrel right through the rainbow fields. He evaded all the damage, and saved vs. the poison and insanity. Unfortunately, as a stone statue on another plane, he was effectively removed from the battle.
Name of PC: Loqor
Class/Level: Stone Giant Fighter 4
Adventure: Spires of Xin-Shalast
Catalyst: Too many melee'ers next to each other.
Story:
Unfortunately, Karzoug still had a trick up his sleeve, and used his spell-like (no verbal required) quickened teleport to pop to the opposite side. Approaching a bit, he let loose his wail of the banshee. With some extreme luck, Tyska the Ranger was protected by the Holy Aura, Char her Auroch companion made the save, as did Valeros (replacement for Viorian, who they knew but hadn't seen since Burnt Offerings). Poor Loqor, master of the Fort saves, unfortunately rolled a 1, and even an action point card could not bring him high enough.
The 220 points of damage would have laid him low from full. After a horrid wilting and other things, it slew him horribly.
Fortunately, despite the losses, Glim, Geldon, & Tyska, with a combination of destructions, charges, and failed concentrations, Karzoug was slain, despite
Congratulations to the Heroes of Sandpoint, and the Saviors of Varisia.
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32
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Ah yes... after a long period of not being truly challenged by the adventure, the party approached the Pinnacle of Avarice over confident and ready for anything (or so they thought)....
Celethon, male elven wizard/archmage/loremaster, was hit with a critical by a rune giant's greatsword. Went from almost full (70+) to less than -20 IIRC.
Easy, human male Rogue 3/Ranger 2/Duskblade 5/Unseen Seer 5 got via a cloud giant's critical with his morning star.
Skald (real name a secret), a Neanderthal Savage Bard 6/Barbarian 1/Neanderthal Paragon 1/Virtuoso 5/Sublime Chord 2 got via a thrown boulder a storm giant threw.
It was fairly ugly. Luckily revivify and delay death were available to keep them from truly buying it.
Name of PC: Conbay
Class/Level: Human Fighter 9
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Ogre Hooks Crit Hard
Story:
Name of PC: Moto
Class/Level: Ogre-Kin Paladin 8
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: An angry Stone Giant
Story:
Name of PC: Conbay
Class/Level: Human Fighter 10
Adventure: Fortress of the Stone Giants
Catalyst: Ranger's Poor Targeting
Name of PC: Mystic
Class/Level: Halfling Sorceress 10
Adventure: Fortress of the Stone Giants
Catalyst: Ranger's Poor Targeting
Name of PC: Leaboth
Class/Level: Human Cleric 10
Adventure: Fortress of the Stone Giants
Catalyst: Ranger's Poor Targeting
Name of PC: Telm
Class/Level: Aasimar Ranger 10
Adventure: Fortress of the Stone Giants
Catalyst: Ranger's Poor Targeting