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There were many deaths in our last 3 sessions, here's the rundown
Session 1:
Name of NPC: Shelelu(Cohort to party Bard)
Class/Level: ranger 10/Fighter 1
Adventure: Sins of the Saviors
Catalyst: Violet Prismatic Spray
Story: Highlady Athroxis got the party with a prismatic spray, Shelelu got sent to the Astral Plane with no way back.
Session 2:
Name of PC: Gudrik Skullsmasher
Class/Level: Barbarian 14
Adventure: Sins of the Saviors
Catalyst: fighting 2 of himself
Story: Reflected Enemy trap in the Shimmering Veils, he went in first, and looked in the mirror. Whole party rolled low initiative. Thanks to his greater Beast totem, and not rolling low on initiative, I got 2 full attacks in before anyone could do anything.
Name of PC: Bingles Burnabunch
Class/Level: Cleric 13/Holy Vindicator 1
Adventure: Sins of the Saviors
Catalyst: The cleric went in the room first
Story: He Ran into the Peacock Shrine alone after the mirrors, 6vs1. It took 3 phantasmal killers, but they got him. Would later be resurrected using Scroll by Paladins cleric Cohort
Name of PC: Yorik Vanzant
Class/Level: Bard(Thundercaller) 13
Adventure: Sins of the Saviors
Catalyst: Many Fireballs
Story: After the Bingles ran in alone and died, the rest of the party moved up to avenge him. Yorik fell after a barrage of fireballs.
Session 3:
Name of NPC: Elsa(Cohort to Inquisitor)
Class/Level: Wizard 10
Adventure: Sins of the Saviors
Catalyst: Omox Demon
Story: Suffocated on Omox demon
Name of NPC: Sam(Cohort to Paladin)
Class/Level: Cleric 10
Adventure: Sins of the Saviors
Catalyst: Omox Demon
Story: Suffocated on Omox demon
Name of PC: Michael
Class/Level: Fighter 10/Paladin 5
Adventure: Sins of the Saviors
Catalyst: dispel turning flying into swimming in pool of ooze, and Wisdom damage from summoned Shoggti
Story: Used airwalk to move in and attack Jordimandus. A quickened dispel caused him to drop into the pool below, followed by 2 touch attacks for wisdom damage from the Shoggti, rolled max on both, put him at 0 WIS so unconscious in the pool, where he died of acid and suffocation.
Name of NPC: Ricknin
Class/Level: Inquisitor 14
Adventure: Sins of the Saviors
Catalyst: Disintegrate and acid arrow
Story: Same fight with Jordimandus, fought well using boots of fly and teleportation abilities. Disintegrate took out most of his health, acid arrow finished the job.
If you are keeping track, the Cleric thanks to a true resurrection scroll is the only one alive, and had to use plane shift to flee, and find new allies.
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Name of NPC: Shelelu(Cohort to party Bard)
Class/Level: ranger 10/Fighter 1
Adventure: Sins of the Saviors
Catalyst: Violet Prismatic Spray
Story: Highlady Athroxis got the party with a prismatic spray, Shelelu got sent to the Astral Plane with no way back....the Cleric thanks to a true resurrection scroll is the only one alive, and had to use plane shift to flee...
Seriously?!?!?!
One of the party members takes Shalelu on as a cohort, she gets shifted to another plane, and they're just, "Oh, well! Plenty more where that came from!"?!?!?!?!
While the cleric had Plane Shift prepared!
So cohorts are disposable at the PC's convenience. Hmmm... THAT ought to increase his/her leadership score immensely.
(Sorry. My party would have turned that into an epic 2-3 session quest to find her. Hearing a group just say, "Oh, well!" is just amazing to me...)
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Name of NPC: Shalelu Andosana
Class/Level: Fighter 2 / Ranger 4
Adventure: The Hook Mountain Massacre (additional side quest on the road - Terror at Whistledown).
Catalyst: Breaking the rule "Don't get aboard on boat".
Story: Party convinced Shalelu to go with them, to help with vampire problem. Their base was across the lake, so PC's took the boat. And where attacked by 2 advanced huge constrictor snakes. They managed to ward off one (hold monster+failed coup de grace) and kill the second (summoner casted a whale, and witch's cohort-fighter mounted it to fight the snake underwater). Still, before not so epic underwater fight, as you might expect, second snake managed to grapple Shalelu with grab (dealing a lot of damage), and drag her off the boat. She managed to crit the snake, piercing it lungs (critical hit card), but odds where not in her favor. So she died, but her body was reclaimed. And witch-party leader is going to reincarnate her at next session with his spell.
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Name of NPC: Shelelu(Cohort to party Bard)
Class/Level: ranger 10/Fighter 1
Adventure: Sins of the Saviors
Catalyst: Violet Prismatic Spray
Story: Highlady Athroxis got the party with a prismatic spray, Shelelu got sent to the Astral Plane with no way back....the Cleric thanks to a true resurrection scroll is the only one alive, and had to use plane shift to flee...
Seriously?!?!?!
One of the party members takes Shalelu on as a cohort, she gets shifted to another plane, and they're just, "Oh, well! Plenty more where that came from!"?!?!?!?!
While the cleric had Plane Shift prepared!So cohorts are disposable at the PC's convenience. Hmmm... THAT ought to increase his/her leadership score immensely.
(Sorry. My party would have turned that into an epic 2-3 session quest to find her. Hearing a group just say, "Oh, well!" is just amazing to me...)
There were some problems when it happened. Due to wisdom loss from the goop in the halls of Wrath, and his headband getting destroyed, the cleric only had 14 wisdom at the time, so he couldn't cast it until they sat around long enough to craft him a new headband. Plus for Plane shift, you need a rod attuned to the proper plane, which is not immediately available in the Runeforge. My guess is that once the party is back on their feet, they will track her, or her dead body(The astral plane is pretty scary) down.
Also the cleric totally forgot he could cast Plane shift, which was funny.
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This happened a few months ago, just catching up.
Name of PC: Arbreth
Class/Level: 3rd Level Wizard (Diviner) Tiefling
Adventure: Thistle Top
Catalyst: Erylium (an angry little quasit)
Story: So after fighting the party to a stand still twice in the Catacombs of Wrath, Erylium decides to retreat. She had decided they would just keep coming back until she was dead. She spent days tracking them as a centipede and raven. She had her familiar following them as well. Her hopes was to catch them one at a time, alone, and eventually kill them all. A solid plan she thought. The party kept seeing the same song bird but it never clicked that it was her familiar.
One night between forays into the complex below Thistle Top, they were sleeping in one of the towers. Arbreth thought it would be a good idea to sleep on the landing between the two levels. He failed to realize that he was out of sight of the rest of the party, despite me asking a couple times if that was what he was really doing. Erylium found him there when she was sneaking after them as a centipede. She decided it was now or never, she changed self, and coup de graced him in his sleep. By time the party was aware she was there, Arbreth was very dead, and they saw a centipede slipping through the cracks in the wood of the palisade.
The first and only death in the adventure thus far. That is likely to change when they face Xanesha when next we play.
Dice Karma is a b*+©h
Name of PC: Robulan Naurbura
Class/Level: Half-Orc Monk 11
Adventure: Fortress of the Stone Giants
Catalyst: Lack of sleep for the player and pc, overconfidence, and X4 crit dmgWe had just saved Sandpoint from the Giants and Dragon. It was about 1:30am irl and I was exhausted. My character Rob was as too; well fatigued anyway, since he had spent the previous night awake on guard duty. We all were ready to call it a night, but we wanted to finish the engagment first.
About an hour ago the Paladin had one shot Longtooth with a crit and I had taken out 3 giants and some dire bears. The giants started to retreat, and since we were so full of ourselves, we gave chase. With my monk speed, higher AC, and stunning fist, I figured I could go and slow them down till the rest of the party caught up.
Alone and not at full hp, I engaged the boss giant. BIG MISTAKE. He goes and crits on his first attack of a full attack, and eventually puts me to -20.
Twas a sad day for the sandpoint police department when robulan died. Perhaps he shouldn't have played the keep cutting off the fleeing Teraktinus game. The party transported the body to magnimar for resurrection and left the body in the hands of the church of Pharasma.Robulan could not be revived immediately as the priesthood needed to perform a divination as to whether or not a soul should be brought back and head priestess was out helping with a birth. The party returned to sandpoint to help aiding the citizens. While they were away a VERY CHARMING lady convinced the clergy to relinquish Rob into her hands as she had found someone to revive him. She indeed has some friends with animosity towards the SPPD
Upon discovering the theft, the paladin released frustration by offering an award of money to any that could kill him in the underbridge. This caused him to kill the desperate and lose his powers
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Name of PC: Tiny
Class/Level: Fighter (unbreakable) 6
Adventure: The Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: Suicide Compulsion Haunt and a Natural 1
Story: After uncovering the culprit behind the murders and finding Foxglove Manor the party began to skulk the halls uncovering haunts and other frights. Before too long they came across Traver and Cyralie's marital bedroom. Upon spying the "dagger" lying on the desk Tiny became certain he had killed his one true love. One failed will save later and he had drawn it swiftly across his neck. Due to his high strength and high rolls he dealt a solid 20 damage. He then managed to roll a natural 1 on his fortitude save to not die instantly. He died instantly. Thankfully, Tiny has Tenacious Survivor. He was up a few rounds later with a negative level.
Gameplay has been erratic for my group ever since school started back up, but we're making headway into The Spires of Xin-Shalast at last. Due to the big gap between playing it seems that my players were rusty... a lot of clumsy mistakes. My players are completely new to Pathfinder so picking up level 15 characters after a big break seems to have resulted in them forgetting important tricks that their characters are capable of. Paladin player forgetting about auras, cleric player forgetting what their highest level spells are, pretty much everyone forgetting how awesome Fly is, etc. This resulted in a couple of deaths, but thankfully with a high level cleric (and pockets brimming with gold from the previous chapter) deaths are not as permanent as they once were.
PC: Seelah
Class/Level: Human Paladin of Iomedae 15
Adventure: The Spires of Xin-Shalast
Catalyst: Flung by old blue dragon Cadrilkasta to her death.
Story:
So my PCs learned about the brothers Vekker from their favorite informant, Brodert Quink, pretty quickly. They were pretty dissatisfied with the information for some reason so they went hunting for more gossip, even heading to Janderhoff to question the dwarves there. I obliged them with some of the gossip about Varisia in the older editions, namely that at Guiltspur an enormous blue dragon was leading an excavation into Thassilonian Ruins. The party made their biggest mistake here: despite knowing ahead of time that a big blue dragon was going to be at the site, they didn't bother to research blue dragons ahead of time, and so were utterly unprepared for the fight to come.
I didn't want to waste too much time on this tangent, but I also didn't want to punish them for taking the incentive to search for information (something my PCs don't typically do that I wish they would). The group spent an inordinate amount of time clearing through the Runeforge (several months) so I figured Karzoug had expanded his recruitment drive by now to recruit the old blue dragon, Cadrilkasta. He had already recruited her giants and ogres, but she was moseying around the excavation site one last time in search for ancient treasure. I figured I could reward the group with info if they went the diplomatic route, or with dragon hoard loots if they killed the dragon. At CR 17 she would be a rough fight but not impossible with some fore-thought...unfortunately they skipped the whole fore-thought part hehe.
The group arrived and started poking around the ruins only to awaken an angry nest of Skull Rippers. This was a formidable boss back in Hook Mountain Massacre, but at level 15 even fighting five at once was a pretty simple task. Cadrilkasta was impressed, and decided to swoop down and attempt to recruit them for Runelord Karzoug (under the guise of recruiting them for her dig). At the same time, as a Very Old Blue Dragon, she was pretty cocky, and did not attempt to ambush them or use mirages to treat with them. Seelah the paladin was immediately suspicious of the LE dragon and wasn't about to treat with her. They drew their weapons. The dragon won initiative, showered two characters in electricity. Then the entire group failed will saves against her Fearsome Presence, except Seelah, who was immune to fear.
Seelah, undaunted, stood her ground while the rest of the group fled in a panic. Seelah was snatched up in the dragon's jaws, flown up high, then unceremoniously dropped. Thanks to the party's last hero points they gained from creating their dominant weapons, Seelah was saved by the grace of Iomedae and was able to drag her battered body back into the wilderness, where she was rescued by the party cleric, Kyra. Meanwhile, Cadrilkasta left for Xin Shalast to report to Karzoug, but the group was not willing to risk another encounter with the dragon, and did not investigate the dig site further. I'm sure they'll run into her again!
PC: Malanovka
Class/Level: Elf Skald 15
Adventure: The Spires of Xin-Shalast
Catalyst: Splitting the party results in death via Frost Worm
Story:
So my group went through the Vekker Cabin and this time were able to piece together the story (they were completely confused by the Foxglove Manor) via the haunts. At the climax of the haunting Silas Vekker sent them to get the body of Karivek Vekker in return for knowledge about Xin Shalast. They used scrying magic to find his body, and Kyra's vision showed the body alone on a 2,000 ft high cliff next to a graveyard.
The Wendigo's snowstorm was completely negated by Kyra (who could control weather) so the trip there was unremarkable. So when they came to the mine, Crosis, the dragon disciple, picked up Malanovka and flew 2,000 feet up, leaving Seelah and Kyra behind. It was interesting that they did this when, just earlier, they almost lost Kyra to the Horror Tree when the group split up at the cabin. When they went to pick up the corpse, they were ambushed by Karivek and his frost worm. Karivek let out a frightful moan, terrifying Crosis, who flew away at top speed. Malanovka was then left alone with Karivek's devastating touch attacks and a Frost Worm with ice breath. She tried to flee but was ultimately crushed in the frost worm's jaws.
Crosis flew back to retrieve Malanovka's body so that Kyra could resurrect her.
PC: Malanovka
Class/Level: Elf Skald 15
Adventure: The Spires of Xin-Shalast
Catalyst: Wendigo picked her up and threw her to the ground
The group returned to take on Karivek Vekker and the worm the next day. They had an unnecessarily rough time of it due to taking no measures to protect themselves against the attacks they knew the enemy had (mind-affecting fear, frost breath) so Crosis and Kyra ended up fleeing in fear to the frightful moan, leaving Seelah and Malanovka to basically fight the enemy 2v2. The paladin and skald proved a great team and were able to scrape out a win.
On the way back, they heard the howl of the Wendigo for the second time, except this time Malanovka was able to make the Knowledge: Planes check and learn that it was a Wendigo. The group did not press the matter or make further knowledge checks about the Wendigo, so again, a lack for fore-knowledge resulted in needless death.
They finally took the corpse back to the cabin, and the Wendigo immediately began besieging the cabin. He burst through the wall next to Malanovka, focusing on her since she was the only member in the party not in heavy armor. He grabbed her in his jaws, and flew away to 200 feet in the air. Kyra responded with Flame Strike, killing the Wendigo, but Malanovka helplessly fell to her death (I guess she was too panicked to realize she could have used an immediate action feather fall)...thankfully Kyra was right there to resurrect her.
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Name of PC: Soril
Class/Level: Male Human Wizard 13 (Evoker)
Adventure: Sins of the Saviors (modified for 7 PCs and content)
Catalyst: Mirror(s) Of Opposition
Story: Upon entering the Shimmering Veils portion of Runeforge, the heroes encountered the Mirrors ofOpposition. As soon as they turned their backs on one of the mirrors, their opposites spawned and attacked. The opposition party used the heroes tactics against the to great effect. Soril was laid low by a combination of the Faux Alchemist's bombs and Faux Soril's spells (specifically, wall of fire).
-Skeld
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Ogre Hooks. Man, I think the chapter title is in reference to how nasty these things are, and it's only coincidental it's the name of the mountain. Like many others, my PCs learned a harsh lesson during the retaking of the fort. During the excursion, I noticed some serious issues with the logistics of the ogres taking the fort in the first place, but I'll save those for another thread. I'll just recount my PCs' (not so) glorious deaths here.
Name of PC: Malepidus
Race/Class/Level: CN Rogue 3/Wiz 3/Arcane Trickster 2
Adventure: Chapter 3, Hook Mountain Massacre - Part 2: Retaking Rannick
Catalyst: Gragavan Kreeg
Story:
Name of PC: Varek
Race/Class/Level: CN Barbarian 8
Adventure: Chapter 3, Hook Mountain Massacre - Part 2: Retaking Rannick
Catalyst: Gragavan Kreeg
Story:
Name of PCs: Malanovka, Kyra (Malanovka perished permanently, Kyra brought back with Hero Points)
Race/Class/Level: CG Elvish Skald 16, NG Human Cleric of Sarenrae 16
Adventure: The Spires of Xin-Shalast
Catalyst: Decided to dimension door into the middle of four cloud giants
Spoiler:
The frost giant used feather fall to close the distance quickly while the cloud giants hurled boulders. The boulders were largely ineffective against the heroes, even unbuffed, so the players assumed they were a bunch of chumps and let their guard down. The paladin, cleric, and skald dealt with the frost giant while the dragon disciple, Crosis, transformed into a dragon and flew up to engage the cloud giants all by himself.
The cloud giants switched to morningstars and almost killed Crosis in a round of full attacks. The rest of the players realized that Crosis needed saving, quickly, or he would fall to the cloud giants. The paladin drank a potion of fly and flew up to Crosis for lay on hands. Malanovka decided to dimension door with Kyra into the cave in the middle of all four cloud giants, with the intention of getting heals to Crosis. In range. Suddenly forgetting that casting spells draws attacks of opportunity.
Malanovka and Kyra were considerably squishier than the paladin and the dragon, so they perished quickly with no way to escape the cave. Seelah managed to recover Crosis on her own, and they managed to fell the cloud giants. The group had enough hero points to only recover one hero, and had no money to resurrect the other. They chose Kyra, erected a funeral pyre to send off Malanovka, and then sent word to their old Arcane Archer friend, Himmelsdorf for aid.
Such... awesome... deaths!
'scuze me, gotta kill more of the kids' PCs in Serpent's Skull now...
My players have died a few times over the last while...
Name of PC: Cecil
Class/Level: Elf Ranger 11
Adventure: Fortress of the Stone Giants
Catalyst: Galenmir
Story:
Name of PC: Nu
Class/Level: Human Monk 11
Adventure: Fortress of the Stone Giants
Catalyst: Galenmir
Story:
Name of PC: Cecil
Class/Level: Elf Ranger 12
Adventure: Fortress of the Stone Giants
Catalyst: Hill giants
Story:
Name of PC: Ciaran
Class/Level: Human Sorcerer 13
Adventure: Fortress of the Stone Giants
Catalyst: Black Monk
Story:
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Name of PC: Alris
Class/Level: Hexblade / Black Blade Magus 6
Adventure: Burnt Offerings
Catalyst: Malfeshnekor
They obviously chose to investigate. Opening the tomb the invisible barghest immediately blinked past the front liners to try and get to the tasty bard at the back. Alris rushed in to help her and was thoroughly mauled by the barghest. He was nearly killed by the attack but using my harrow card system he turned in three cards to avoid death.
Name of PC: Eisen
Class/Level: Cleric of Groetus 7
Adventure: Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: Faceless Stalkers
The ever chaotic groetus cleric got double teamed by faux ironbriar and aldern and was down into negatives in no time. Thanks to his cards he was able to negate fatal damage. Eisen lived to go on and be central to the death of Xanesha.
Name of PC: Kibb (Honorable Mention)
Class/Level: Firepelt Cougar Companion
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Ogre Hook Crit
Splitting the party during the onset of the assault the cleric and fighter/cavalier faced off with Lucrecia while the NPC's, Magus, and Alchemist started a huge brawl in the courtyard. During the fighting Orik, Jakardros and Shalelu proved helpful but Kibb was clearly the star of the show.
Unfortunately he was critted by an ogre hook and would have been torn apart if Eisen's player had not used three of his OWN cards to save him. Long live Kibb.
Name of PC: Alris
Class/Level: Hexblade / Black Blade Magus 9
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Grazuul
Alris also was forced to use his cards to survive.
Name of PC: Arianne Oreseeker
Class/Level: Cavalier / Fighter 4/6 <I think>
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Lunderbud and his Kreeg Ogre Friends
She was knocked well into negatives and beyond her constitution forcing her to have to use her cards as well. This unfortunate turn of events would force Eisen to use Breath of Life when she was critted to -36 by Barl in the next combat.
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That particular decision came out of what has become a running theme in my game.
I always try and have at least one of the villains get away to come back as a recurring pain for them. The first time it was Tsuto and Lyrie and they thought it was Aldern at the Townhouse. Recently I did it again with Lucrecia.
They go out of their way to make special considerations/keep anyone from getting away now. The sorcerer dim anchored Barl 'just to make sure' last game. I think my recurring villain days are over.
Although...
Whose form? Tsuto's of course. Having seen him sometime during the events of book 1. They would love that.
Name of PC: Savanni
Class/Level: Inquisitor 11
Adventure: Fortress of the Stone Giants
Catalyst: Iron Peak Patrol
While scouting out the Vale of the Black Tower and formulating a plan of action, the PCs encountered a wandering patrol consisting of two stone giants and two dire bears. Fanning out, the patrol lined up in what basically amounted to a wall to face the PCs.
Seizing the opportunity, the party Magus circled around to one side to unleash the lightning bolt he had stored in his scimitar on the nicely lined up patrol, criting on the spell. Unfortunately for him, he wasn't paying attention to the fact that the Inquisitor was grappled by one of the dire bears and toasted her along with the patrol thanks to an unsavory roll of the die.
Name of PC: Arenya
Race: Catfolk
Class/Level: Ranger 9
Chapter 3 Spoilers
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Name of NPC: Johan Ma'Cloud
Class/Level: Warrior, Unbreakable Fighter 5 level
Adventure: The Skinsaw Murders and additional module - Dawn of Scarlet Sun.
Catalyst: Being a good guy and fighter with low will save.
Story: Johan died first time when was helping characters with ghouls, at Hambley farm. Party decided at that time, going at night to clear cornfields from ghouls on their own is a bad idea. So they secured two Sandpoint Guards with them. On my end, as GM, I decided that ghouls will not sit and wait for party to kill them one by one, while posing as scarecrows - they will ambush them en masse from cornfields. So, when the time came, they charged from all around. One of guards died, witch fell down stabilized, others were fighting. Others, aside from Johan, who bravely rushed to pour a heal potion in witch's mouth. This didn’t go well for him. Still, for his bravery, witch paid for his reincarnation after whole ghoul deal. Johan returned as half-orc, and, after a bit of time, was incorporated in the party as witch's cohort.
Second demise Johan acquired when he gave weapon to discussed, as a priest, succubus via suggestion. Moments after, he was killed by her assassin death attack. And again, witch paid for his reincarnation. Johan returned back to his human form. After this, witch retrained him as Unbreakable and gave him sihedron amulet (for its false life). I also gave him Grave-Risen Achievement Feat. The last saved Johan from another death, when he almost was beaten by undead unicorns.
Now, he's retired with his witch buddy in Harrowed Demiplane to be the caretakers there, for the rest of the party.
By the way, almost died here too - was possessed via magic jar by shadow demon, who wanted to commit suicide while inside Johan's body (was put in slumber by witch).
Name of PC: Feivel
Class/Level: Witch 9 lvl
Adventure: The Hook Mountain Massacre (additional side quest on the road - Terror at Whistledown).
Catalyst: Bad rolls.
Story: So we started another session at the moment, when party cleared vampire coven in the ruins. There were some chained prisoners from Whistledown. For the sake of saving time, Feivel decided to lift Johan a hand with retrieving prisoners from their chains. This didn’t go well.
He rolled 1 for perception and didn't notice a magical trap on chains from one of prisoners. It was phantasmal killer. He rolled 2 on will save for disbelief, which didn't helped the situation. The last hope was on fortitude. And 8 weren’t good enough. Almost, but not enough.
Latter, he was reincarnated as goblin (he was samsaran). Now, he's retired with his cohort at Harrowed Demiplane, because player decided to leave the party.
P.S. Shalelu now is halfling.
PC Name: Gudrik Skullsmasher
Class/Level: Barbarian(Invulnerable Rager)/16
Adventure: Spires of Xin Shalast
Catalyst: Scarlet walker Paralysis, followed by a Scarlet Walker Coup de Grace.
Story:Party made peace with the Yetis, and learned of other creatures in lower Shalast. They also figured out they would need rings to get past the field, and went to get the one from "Insect man". An Ice storm meant rough terrain, so the Barbarian tried to use Acrobatics, and failed, he then bombed his fort save on the Scarlet Walker Paralysis. That walker happened to be next in initiative, and delivered a Coup de Grace to put the biggest damage dealer the party has out early.
PC Name: Kenzi Blackwood
Class/Level: Sorcerer/16
Adventure: Spires of Xin Shalast
Catalyst: Cone of Cold from the Ice Devil
Story:Lasted most of the fight. Was almost exclusively using fire spells like fireball and Fire snake. The ice devil fire immunity, and Scarlet walker high reflex saves and evasion limited his usefulness. He got hit with scarlet walker AoOs and many cones of cold before going down.
PC Name: Bingles Burnabunch
Class/Level: Cleric/Holy Vindicator
Adventure: Spires of Xin Shalast
Catalyst: Impaled on Ice devil Spear
Story: He did his best to keep himself and most of the party up as long as possible, when that didn't work, he summoned a celestial Roc to attack the ice devil, who had protection from good on. The Roc then got Paralyzed and Coup de Graced. Thanks to Holy vindicator abilities, had really high AC and pretty good saves. But with a Summoned Bone devil, a scarlet walker, and an Ice devil all full attacking him, he lost to probability, and got killed by the spear.
Dear diary, today I killed one of my players for the first time, it was the best day ever.
PC Name: Daigo
Class/Level: Gunslinger (Pistolero) 6
Adventure: Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: Iesha Foxglove didn't want to dance.** spoiler omitted **
Though we have dabbled with PF previously, this is our first full campaign. At first I was very careful with the party, fudging lots of things and playing monsters more stupidly than they really should be, to give them a fighting chance (Malfeshnekor especially would have been a virtual TPK otherwise). They're all quite hardcore boardgamers and didn't like this very much. So as of Skinsaw Murders, the training wheels came off. They're actually doing pretty well, but having no-one with Knowledge(Religion), they had no idea just how incredibly dangerous a cornered Revenant can be...
Clap... clap... clap...
(Wipes a tear from his eye...)
Simply... beautiful!
Hurray! I finally have a genuine obituary entry to log - my first one ever for an AP! :)
PC Name: Halatir
Race/Class/Level: Male elven Inquisitor 2
Adventure: Burnt Offerings
Catalyst: Bruthazmus' unending hatred of all things elven (and the GM's hot dice against the players' extremely uncooperative dice)
Door number four proved to be a tough one, as Bruthazmus had managed a crucial Perception check to hear the party discussing tactics outside the harem door. Not amused at being interrupted at his play, he prepared a warm welcome. When the half-orc Barbarian was hit by a critical for an appalling amount of damage (25 hp!), he fell back into the feast hall. Bruthazmus advanced five feet and continued to whale upon him, but now the rest of the party could also attack him.
By his next turn, Bruthazmus had spotted Halatir and decided to attack the elf instead of the Barbarian. One hard blow later, Halatir had had enough and therefore retreated five feet. (Halatir is an archer, not a melee type.) But brutal Bruthazmus followed! One more critical later from my hot new dice, and Halatir was 9 hp beyond his death threshold (28 hp damage from the critical vs. 7 remaining "active" hp and a Constitution of 12). Bruthazmus roared his glee at having slaughtered one of his favoured enemies.
At this point, I interrupted play to offer the group a modified version of the hero point system. (We had not previously discussed this option when we began the campaign.) They grabbed the opportunity, and Halatir immediately spent his two hero points so as to be at -11 hp instead of -21 hp. However, as I told my players, I reserved the right to count this as a genuine GM kill (TM).
That game session saw an inordinate number of misses (and low damage) on the players' side of the screen, and more than two high-damage criticals on my side. By the end of the session, the players were threatening their dice with microwaving (and probably plotting to steal my brand-new red dice). :)
PC Name: Aurora (cohort)
Race/Class/Level: Half-elf bard (Negotiator) 5
Adventure: The Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: That darn bell trap...
Aurora is the half-elf lover and cohort of Tiny, the party tank and general murder-machine. Having just reached level 7 before the final showdown with Xanesha he picked up his boo and we were ready to rock.
Now, Aurora was built to mainly be used off screen as a way for us hand-wave the selling of loot and such. She is a merchant's daughter and a smuggler who always has max ranks in bluff, appraise, etc. In combat she was meant to be 100% support staff - a healer, buffer/debuffer who stayed as far away from the melee as possible. This was largely because of how protective Tiny is of her as well as because of the absolutely pitiful amount of hit points she has.
Regardless, up the clocktower they were climbing. When Xanesha's Faceless Stalker buddies dropped the bell everyone managed to dodge it somehow - except for the new cohorts. Iza, the warpriest cohort took the hit and lived. Aurora, on the other hand, fell victim to a natural 20 on the bell's attack roll. The resulting damage was enough to kill her instantly, even before factoring in fall damage.
After rage-murdering the crud out of Xanesha Tiny began a short period of mourning after which Aurora was reincarnated as a human.
Man, Tiny has had the worst luck in this campaign. He has died twice. Both his lover (Aurora) and his best friend (Cal) have died as well. It's actually become a running joke in our group that he has to die once per book. Perhaps now someone close to him must also die once per book?
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PC Name: Seelah
Race/Class/Level: Human Paladin of Iomedae 15
Adventure: The Spires of Xin Shalast
Catalyst: Cone of Cold + Ice Devil
A couple of of PC decisions lead to this death so I'll need to elaborate.
My PCs showed up to Xin Shalast and immediately drew attention to themselves by clearing out the lamia kuchrima in Krak Naratha and liberating the skulks. Gyukak the "stone giant" reached out to the heroes while they were wandering around near the Heptaric Locus trying to decide how to go about hunting down Karzoug's generals for their keys. Gyukak warned them that two of Karzoug's best generals were actively hunting the party down to eliminate them: the blue dragon, Ghlorofaex, and the Ice Devil, Gamigin. Gyukak hoped that the party would use this information to cause a distraction allowing the giant slaves to escape.
Decision 1: My party continued with their established precedent of never making knowledge rolls about any hints I give them to prepare, even though they have a designated knowledge skill pc (lol). So they had no idea what an Ice Devil was going into the fight.
The group then decided to head to Shahlaria, the rune giant fortress. They killed giants there, culminating in a massive battle against a rune giant + slaves. Subsequently the other giant slaves in Shahlaria fled once their slavemaster died, leaving Shahlaria vacated. The hubbub the group caused attracted Ghlorofaex. The group downed Ghlorofaex in the courtyard of Shahlaria after unsuccessfully trying to use the fortress as a defensive position from which to attack him. By the time Ghlorofaex went down it was late in the evening and the group was motivated to rest.
Now, previously the group liberated the skulks from the Hidden Beast, leaving the vampire's former lair empty and safe. The skulks offered the Hidden Beast's lair as a safe place to rest, and also their elaborate tunnels underneath Xin Shalast generally allow me to hand wave the group's ability to travel through the lower city. But the group made decision #2 - they decided to rest in Shahlaria, knowing that they have an active assassin trying to kill them, with a blue dragon general rotting in the courtyard, rather than retreating to the safety of the skulk's underground tunnels.
Gamigin is clever, and did not live to his advanced age by being stupid. He decided to sneak into Shahlaria in the dead of night with his scarlet walkers and attempt to wipe the group out. The group did not barricade the door, the party members elected to sleep in different rooms spread out amongst the fortress, and the party members did not appoint someone to keep watch through the night. So Gamigin, his summoned bone devils, and 2 scarlet walkers decided to get the jump on the group paladin, due to eyewitness reports of the paladin being the brute force that slew Ghlorofaex. The group got perception checks (with the sleeping penalty of course) to notice him but failed. Unarmed and without her heavy armor on, the paladin went down in the second round to cone of cold.
Things looked grim but the cleric and arcane archer were able to pull things back from a TPK and killed Gamigin (which is good because he would have otherwise continued to torment them). The group used a staff of travel to move back and forth to Magnimar quickly. They sold some of their goodies found in Xin Shalast to afford Seelah's resurrection.
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Name of PC: Woe
Class/Level: Male Human Monk 4
Adventure: The Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: Suicide Compulsion Haunt
Story: Pretty average rolls on my part and decent rolls for the PCs had meant the haunts up to this point had been merely curiosities. Even so, the party approached this room with care. Though I'd previously read a lot about this insta-kill haunt, in the midst of all the excitement I didn't realise that this was the room until after I'd started reading out the description aloud. Applying the "go hard or go home" theory with reckless abandon, I continued as per the AP.
Woe failed every save decisively and even the nearby paladin failed thoroughly in an attempt to intervene. The Monk opened up his throat in spectacular fashion and promptly slumped to the floor. Being dead, there was little the party could do but apply Gentle Repose and begin dragging the corpse about, hoping to pay for a Raise Dead, or for a miracle.
It seems to me, however, that in a house full of haunts and restless spirits, even the recently dead would not rest easy. So Woe soon found himself stranded in the house as a disembodied spirit - trapped by the house. He can see a twisted version of the real world and has a much more "direct" experience of the remaining haunts in the house. He can interact with the party through a limited poltergeist-like telekinesis.
I've also allowed him to attack and be attacked by undead as long as he uses his body (so, as a monk, no problem at all!). I figure the insides of the house are a kind of pocket of the Negative material/Plane of Shadow/whatever.
He still needs to find some way to get himself back to the land of the living, and to avoid becoming a more permanent resident of Foxglove Manor. I also think he may have some strong competition in terms of potential residents of his corpse...
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That's just really cool!
And what an appropriate name!
Were his given names Edgar Allen?
Name of PC: Biru Shadow Caller
Class/Level: Female gnome thief 3
Adventure: Burnt Offerings
Catalyst: Giant Hermit Crab
Story:
I'm writing this for my player - and although the death happened long ago it shadows the campaign to this day...
So the party finished Nualia and got beat up pretty badly (lots of ability damage) by the shadows - and they enter the room with the pool of seawater - everyone leaves but Biru who wants to investigate the helmet.
Except she took a bit getting around to it (searching the room) so by the time the crab came out - the party was 2-3 rounds away.
The crab... being a crab managed to get ahold of her - and the party ran back to help finding her barely hanging on (due to crappy rolls by the crab) in the crabs claws. Well - the crab decided to roll well - and constrict is wickedly dangerous.
On a side note a married couple who are friends of mine played 2 characters in my campaign - Biru was one of them and sadly even though I give a hero point per level to 'avoid 1 death' the incident happened at the same time they had decided one of them would have to drop out due to kids school projects and other real life stuff - so this was a catalyst for her player to gracefully depart the campaign.
The party took Biru's corpse and ended up putting a certain neck item on it and interned her in the Sandpoint crypts. She up to that point had been the party leader and named the group - so they continue (to this day - book 3 now) to call themselves 'Biru's champions' and using the Ultimate Campaign rules I've been adding 'kingdom building' materials into some of their rewards (including running the awesome 'choppers isle' side adventure in wayfinder) - they now have bought choppers isle and with the decent haul from the end of book 2 have begun construction of a 'guild hall' - the centerpiece is a statue to the character.
We're in Sins of the Saviors now, but a while back...
Name of PC: Pikrak the Unruly
Class/Level: Barbarian 6
Adventure: Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: Xanesha
Story:
They reached the abandoned clock tower and the barbarian took offense at the falling bell. He raged his way up most of the tower, only to become fatigued on reaching Xanesha's lair. Two vital strike critical hits from her x3 longspear did him to about -25hp in 2 rounds.
The 3 other party members fled by jumping onto the witch who was levitating off the side of the tower. A rapid descent ensued, followed by headlong flight into Underbridge.
Name of PC: Jakardros Sovark
Class/Level: Ranger 10
Adventure: Fortress of the Stone Giants
Catalyst: Bull rushed over a cliff by a deathweb
Story:
Jakardros had joined the party when a new player showed up during Hook Mountain. He did well until they split the party(!) to investigate the river caves outside Jorgenfist. One of the deathwebs bullrushed him off the ledge, but he managed to catch the edge. Instead of climbing to safety, he tried to engage in melee while hanging on with one hand. This didn't go well, and he was broken on the rocks below.
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Just completed The Skinsaw Murders and have a couple deaths to report.
Name of PC: Giecee
Class/Level: 6th Level Magus (Hex)
Adventure: Skinsaw Murders - Side Quest - Dawn of the Scarlet Sun
Catalyst: Avalexi
Story: The party had been hired on to solve the murders of the Sarenrea followers. One party member, Karn (dwarf priest of Sarenrae) agreed to be the bait. When the ambush of Zadendi failed and the Scarlet Sun and her ran back to the old shrine the party was in hot pursuit, arriving a few rounds later. The scarlet Sun and Zadendi were down in the catacombs reporting the botched kill when the party burst in. Avalexi wanted the dwarf's heart but was denied as Karn did not enter the room right away, but stood out of her sight casting spells. Avalexi summoned up a babau demon then started studying Giecee. Three rounds later Avalexi uses ethereal jaunt to get close to Giecee but hidden in the wall. Next round steps out and does a death attack on Giecee. Poor Giecee failed his save by one.
The player choose not to have Giecee raised, and now has a barbarian named Dancing Rabbit.
Name of PC: Threbriwen
Class/Level: 7th Ranger (Urban) Female Elf
Adventure: Skinsaw Murders - Shadows of Time
Catalyst: Xanesha
Story: After killing Scarecrow, the wizard, Cyrus, had used arcane eye to spy out the top of the Shadow Clock, finding Xanesha up there in human form. They hatched the plan of three of them using dimension door to get up to the room with Xanesha while Threbriwen would fly up the outside and come in through the roof. Solid plan they thought. The dimension doored folks arrived 2 rounds before Threbriwen and had engaged Xanesha, casting silence and glitter dust to shut down her spells and invisibility. Xanesha changes into her Lamia Matriarch form. Threbriwen arrived and moved into position to attack Xanesha who got a solid critical on an attack of opportunity against Threbriwen. Next round Xanesha goes full attack on Thresbriwen, activating the despair ability of the Impaler of Thorns. Threbriwen and Karn failed their saves and were effected by the dispair. Threbriwen also failed the second save and was nauseated. The next round Xanesha full attack Threbriwen and got a critical on the first attack, solid hit on the second and Threbriwen was unconscious and 3 hit points from death. Xanesha finished her with the third attack. Xanesha, who had taken some serious damage from the barbarian, Dancing Rabbit, used the prescribed escape with 5 hit points remaining.
Trebriwen has been raised and is likely going to be doing some retraining during the down time between now and The Hook Mountain Massacre. As for Xanesha, it remains to be seen where she will resurface.
Name of NPC: Ascerit
Class/Level: 11th level Dhampir Black Blade-Kensai Magus
Adventure: The Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Lucrecia
Story: To be short - they came to clanhold. Killed all who stood in their way. Then they went to confront Barl. Considering that this is 5 person party of highly optimized characters, I did everything I could to buff the encounter (without rising CR). Lucrecia previously escaped with Jaagrath, so she was at the site too. It was a hard battle for PCs. Jaagrath stood his ground pretty well (Cleric even tried to plane shift him - with no success). Lucrecia and Barl where practically invincible (38 AC Lucrecia, 33 Barl). To make situation worse - they decided to split via dimension door. Magi and Eidolon to deal with Barl's bodyguard. What they didn't suspect, that Lucrecia was invisible and near them. Poor dhampir was chosen first by lamia, to meet his ancestors. 5 attacks in full-round made the trick.
We play with plot-twist cards, and Inquisitor of Urgathoa used his, to revive Ascerit back as undead vampire. So, it's not the end for him.
I swear, that bugbear lands an inordinate number of critical hits ...
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Name of PC: Doril "Tinker" Silvershaper
Class/Level: Gnome Rogue 8
Adventure: The Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Black Magga (with assistance from Akades, Human Cleric (Ragathiel) 8/Paladin 1)
Story: Having successfully infiltrating Fort Rannick and killing Jaagrath and the rest of his ogre marauders, the Five from Sandpoint returned with Vale Temros to Turtleback Ferry to gather workers to rebuild the place. As they were a few miles from town, they saw the flood waters from up north sweeping down towards the hamlet, and pushed their horses so they could assist the villagers where needed. After dealing with the nightbelly boa, they were awestruck when Black Magga appeared, but rushed to defend the church.
Unfortunately, Black Magga got initiative on all of them, and unleashed her breath of madness over all six of them. The only one who made the save was Octavius Deverin, the party wizard. Everyone else was confused for most of the fight. Foc'ciss, the Five's Shoanti Abadaran inquisitor, and Vale got into a confusion lock early on, and Selene, the party's elven warrior, was singled out by Magga as a threat, so she ended up attacking the immortal beast. At the back, Doril and Akades spent most of their time babbling, but in the third round, Akades ended up being forced to attack the closest target, Doril. Rather than swiping at the rogue with his bastard sword (well, Orik's bastard sword, really), he decided to cast inflict critical wounds on him.
Cue rolling a natural 20, confirming, and Doril failing his Will save. The rogue died instantly as Ragathiel reached through his servant to viciously lacerate the poor gnome.
In the end, Black Magga got struck from a mighty blow from Foc'ciss, and rather than continue the fight, she left Turtleback Ferry to drown. Vale was unconscious, Foc'ciss barely standing, Selene had four negative levels on her, Doril was dead by the paladin's hand, and Akades was wracked with grief for murdering an ally. (Ironically, Akades was still confused for two rounds after she left, and the two rolls were "act normal" and "hit yourself." He channeled in the first round, and when he saw that it didn't help Doril at all, he obviously began flagellating himself as punishment.)
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Name of PC: Qakisst Vishtani
Class/Level: Ifrit Sorcerer 5 / Oracle 2
Adventure: Between Skinsaw and Hook Mountain
Catalyst: power attacking skeletal champion
It's been long enough since it happened that I have now forgotten the exact details of who died, but I nearly TPKed my group in book 5 (three times, now that I think about it! Runeforge seems to be the hardest part of the AP):
The simulacrums in the Pride wing of Runeforge are really quite nasty when they can all target a single opponent, especially when your group's response to triggering the mirrors of opposition is to run *forward* into unexplored territory.
Also that fiendish mustard jelly can be very difficult to deal with when you're unprepared for it; I had to make an on-the-spot ruling that when it divided it couldn't smite good with every separate division, just once for the creature overall. Otherwise they'd have been toast; I'm pretty sure the CR on that thing is wrong.
Finally, omox demons in a sewer almost got them thanks to control water turning it into an underwater fight when they had nothing prepared to deal with that environment.
We've also just had the first death of Book 6:
Name of PC: Usjach
Class Level: Human Paladin 17
Catalyst: dragon + friend
My group is running a little ahead of the curve on level so I toughened up most of the encounters in the lower city of Xin-Shalast. In this case, I added a couple of the CR 11 lamia clerics from Jorgenfist as support to the big dragon fight, so he'd have a way to heal up when he retreated to his lair after encountering the party out in the streets. They're still quite viable against level 17 characters, it turns out, as with buffs running their first attack is sufficient to hit the ACs of everyone in my group (minus the super-AC inquisitor.) The dragon weakened the paladin before dying, then one of the lamias finished him off with an iterative attack after dropping him with the first - amusingly, the same creature that killed him the first time around in Jorgenfist, in basically the same way.
Well, I was amused anyway.
Name of PC: Clerg
Class/Level: Half-Orc Bard 1
Adventure: Burnt Offerings
Catalyst: Goblin raid
Story: Lassoed a goblin to take as prisoner. Lost his character sheet after the first session, so goblin got loose and killed the character.
Name of PC: Rogax
Class/Level: Human Fighter 2
Adventure: Burnt Offerings
Catalyst: Lost at sea
Story: Player lost his character sheet after clearing Glassworks. Character went on a fishing trip and got capsized by a dire lobster.
Name of PC: Gobber
Class/Level: Human Barbarian 3
Adventure: Burnt Offerings
Catalyst: Fell down a hole
Story: Player lost his character sheet, character fell down a pit under the catacombs of Wrath.
Name of PC: Maximo
Class/Level: Human Cleric 3
Adventure: Burnt Offerings
Catalyst: Ghoul Fever
Story: Character contracter Ghoul fever on a side mission and didn't tell his party or attempt to get it healed. At Thistletop, when the party rested, he finally succumbed to the disease. When the party awoke, sorceress used a wand of Control Undead on him, and he became a minion until he was rekilled by Nualia.
Those are all the same player, he no longer attends.
Name of PC: Agronox
Class/Level: Human Oracle 3
Adventure: Burnt Offerings
Catalyst: Erylium
Story: Killed by quasit, his spirit became his brothers eidilon
Name of PC: Nurr
Class/Level: Human Ninja 5
Adventure: Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: Skinsaw Man
Story: Went into melee along with the cleric, both got paralysed. Skinsaw man coup de graced Nurr, slitting his throat with his War Razor and lapping up the blood.
Name of PC: Urlian
Class/Level: Human Ranger 5
Adventure: Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: Vorel Foxglove
Story: Party split up to continue searching the mansion after defeating the Skinsaw Man. Urlian and the sorceress walked into one room, where Urlian picked up a shard of wood and stabbed himself in the throat, killing himself instantly. Sorceress casually walked away, then lied to the party after the found the body, claiming he went off on his own.
Name of PC(ish): Argo
Class/Level: Eidelon 5
Catalyst: Water wheel
Story: Tried to run across gears in the bottom of the saw mill, got caught up and crushed in between them.
The following three caught me on a generous day.
Name of PC: Gronad
Class/Level: Dwarf Cleric 6
Adventure: Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: Xanesha
Story: Xanesha charmed party fighter, who crippled Gronad, then on the next round Xanesha impaled him on her spear. Fort save to not die, failed.
Honorable mentions
Name of PC: Skippy
Class/Level: Human Magus 6
Adventure: Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: Scarecrow
Story: After walking into the clocktower, Scarecrow appeared out of the rubble, won initiative, and crit Skippy with his scythe for what would have been an instant kill. Gave him a Fort save to not die, he passed.
Name of PC: Cronad
Class/Level: Dwarf Fighter 6
Adventure: Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: Xanesha
Story: After being charmed and almost killing his brother Gronad, party archer shoved several arrows down his throat. Gave him a fort save to not die, he passed
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Name of PC: O'Neill
Class/Level: Human Paladin of Torag 8
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Harlock "Hookmaw" Kreeg
Story: I normally don't have enemies continue attacking unconscious opponents (since the conscious ones are always the bigger threat), but this managed to just avert my normal inclinations. O'Neill was the only one within the Ogre's melee reach, so the Ogre full attacked. The first attack was a critical hit which brought him to exactly 1 hit point. The second hit's minimum damage was enough to put him down past -con
Fortunately, by the end of the sessions, the group had leveled up to 9 and the cleric was able to raise him from the dead. Huzzah!
Name of PC: Thomar
Class/Level: Cleric 10
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Skull Ripper
Thomar learned first-hand why the Skull Ripper is named so. After my rather cowardly party spent the night in the dam after fighting off the trolls upstairs, they ventured forth into the depths to face Grazuul. After a rather short battle (damn cowardly party resting after every encounter), they began investigating the rest of the area when they encountered the Skull Ripper. Well, it grabbed ahold of Aquilis the Paladin, who could not break free, then when Thomar stepped into range it grabbed onto him, too. Aquilis escaped its grip (or rather, was thrown across the room), but Thomar was unable to break free. After a brief struggle, *POP* went his head in the vise-like grip of the Skull Ripper's claw.
Fortunately for the party, there was a trapped pit demon just down the hallway simply begging to be freed, and in exchange he would grant them one wish. Of course the party wished for Thomar to be returned to them whole (what a waste of a wish!!! haha), but at a cost -- making a deal with a literal devil caused Aquilis to fall from grace, losing his Paladin abilities. I count that as half a death, because he's useless now. At least, until Thomar casts Atonement...
Name of PC: Orik Vancaskerkin (cohort)
Class/Level: Fighter 4 Ranger 1
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Harlock "Hookmaw" Kreeg and... mistakes.
Story: Following the events of AP1 Orik was sent to the Black Arrows as punishment for his involvement. He was then later encountered with the rest of the survivors at the Graul Farm and took part in the retaking of Fort Rannick. In my game Orik is a really lovable sort of character. I play him as fairly self-deprecating and tragic in the "Man, I can't ever do anything right" sort of way. The party has really liked him from the start and pleaded with Ironbriar to go easy on him. Because of the good treatment shown to him following Thistletop he feels some loyalty to the party and was willing to become our sorceror's bodyguard cohort should he be released from the Black Arrows.
Anyway, during the assault on Rannick everything was going rather well. The party had managed to unleash the shocker lizards and burn the new barracks. They had already caused Lucrecia to flee and were tearing through the ogres. Eventually they reached the upper floor where Jaagrath, Dorella, and Hookmaw were. Because they were expecting all the ogres on this floor to come running as soon as combat started they opened all the doors on the first round of combat. Including the chapel doors where Jaagrath laired. What began as a fight with two normal ogres quickly escalated. Despite some very close calls no PCs perished. Orik, however, met his end with Hookmaw's hook wrapped around his spinal cord.
However, this was not the end for poor Orik as later that day he was reincarnated. As. A. Goblin. Poor, poor Orik. Talk about PTSD.
Name of PC: Sigmund Vinder
Class/Level: Magus 7 Ranger 1
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Minktuck Kreeg and overconfidence
Story: Sig was the party's resident shock-happy dervish dancer. He's not quite beefy enough to qualify as a tank but he can take some hits and he can definitely dish the damage. Following the party's defeat of Jaagrath and other ogre leadership they decided that instead of intimidating the remaining ogres into running away they would eradicate them by leading them into an ambush. This way the Kreeg clan would never again cause harm to those in the mountain or valley. They planted all of the ranged characters and spellcasters on the wall of the cleared keep and called out for all those brave enough to face them. They planted the melee characters down below to attract the ogres attention. Now, they had managed to whittle down the ogres quite a bit. All that remained were Karly-Lop, Jolly, Minktuck, and maybe 2 or 3 run of the mill ogres. They did manage to make it out mostly unscathed (a free round of ranged attacks on the now outnumbered ogres can do that) but Sigmund was not so lucky. He was in over his head, and for that transgression he more or less lost it. Minktuck did his gleeful work, tearing Sig's throat out with his hook, laughing all the while. I can still see the squirrels dancing on his jowls as the rest of the party cut him down in retribution.
Later that day Sig was reincarnated as a human, much to the party's (and his love interest Shalelu's) relief.
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Name of PC: Beramy Rollswagon
Class/Level: Human Cavalier 9
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Jaagrath Kreeg
Story: Went toe to toe with the top ogre in Fort Rannick for two rounds. If Jaagrath's weapon hadn't had the Human Bane quality, he would have survived, but the extra 2d6+2 on top of the normal damage from three hits was too much for him to survive. If he'd gone unconscious after the second hit, Jaagrath would have switched targets to attack the paladin standing next to him, but he was at single digit HP after the first two hits, and the third hit easily took him past his negative Con score.
Oddly, given how deadly I keep hearing this adventure path is supposed to be, this was our first PC death. I guess I'm just a "soft" GM. We also lost Kibb the firepelt cougar in the fight against Lucrecia in Fort Rannick, but that's it for good guy deaths so far. There were two earlier fights where I could have killed PCs, but I let them get away with a daring rescue that probably shouldn't have worked in one of them, and I messed up the enemy tactics in the other.
Name of PC: Thomar
Class/Level: Cleric 10
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Skull Ripper** spoiler omitted **
It sounds like that party is racking up the Sloth points ...
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Name of PC: Marius Dann
Class/Level: Human Sorcerer (Diabolist) 12
Adventure: Fortress of the Stone Giants
Catalyst: Shining Child
The group rounded the corner and Marius immediately fell into full interest of the bronze doors holding the Shining Child. They spent several minutes making rolls trying to discern the different spells cast on the door. Finally discerning that one was the arcane lock and another a greater planar binding.
This further intrigued Marius, given his nature, and he driven to find a way not specifically to enter the room but find out what was bound to the door. Finally, out of options beyond:
So, Marius first cast dimensional anchor (to later hilarious effect) and then cast dispel magic on the arcane lock which I deemed an attempt to break into the room. The Shining Child summoned and blinded all but the cavalier and her mount.
Marius, standing right beside the creature, immediately attempted to teleport (which he quickly realized he could not with the spell he just cast).
The next round he then cast phantasmal killer on the shining child.
I was getting ready to roll my saves when one of the players says, "Oh and if they have telepathy then there's a chance that it's reflected back on the caster!"
I raised my eyebrows and checked... yep.
I passed my will save with a 26. Marius immediately rolled twos on both his saves and dropped dead when the spell was reflected back at him.
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My group is in the final dungeon of the game. Stuff is going rough, but I think they're gonna pull it through in the end. Three deaths last session.
PC Name: Kyra
Race/Class/Level: Human Cleric of Sarenrae 17
Adventure: The Spires of Xin Shalast
Catalyst: Disintegrate
My group got to the big locked door that leads into the Pinnacle of Avarice. Funny how its often the simplest things that they forget to plan for - before embarking to Xin Shalast they sold both of their Chimes of Opening and their masterwork thieves' tools. (In the past, the group has been able to simply open locked doors by force or by smashing it apart...but Karzoug has doors of magically treated stone!) So when the giants opted to simply lock the entrance, the group was befuddled by a locked door too sturdy to simply be kicked in or smashed apart with a mace. They opted to use Ethereal Jaunt to get past this obstacle.
Kyra jaunted through the door and hastily undid the locking mechanism, but in doing so caught the attention of a trio of cloud giants and Karzoug's image. Ultimately it was the image that did her in - she failed her save against disintegrate and was obliterated...until the group used their last hero points to save her.
PC Name: Crosis
Race/Class/Level: Human Bloodrager 7/Dragon Disciple 10
Adventure: The Spires of Xin Shalast
Catalyst: Inattentiveness (+ Viorian Dekanti)
The group got Kyra back onto her feet and were able to push their way into the curved hallway and into a great defensive position. The dragon disciple assumed his dragon form and blocked one end of the hallway, while the paladin stood with her back to the dragon, with the squishy cleric and arcane archer between the two. The dragon disciple and paladin had sufficient AC fully buffed to weather the blows that the first two waves of cloud giants could dole out. The group settled into a "we're fighting a bunch of chumps" sort of mentality and Crosis' player started zoning out pretty badly, wandering off away from the table and doing other things on other players' turns, that kind of thing.
Then, around round 8 or so, Viorian Dekanti and Khalib finally showed up, with a fresh wave of storm giants this time. Viorian Dekanti came from one side of the hallway, towards the dragon disciple, while Khalib came in from the other side, towards the paladin. The scholarly arcane archer identified the two, and the group argued over which was the bigger threat right now. They settled on Khalib. The following exchange happened:
"The paladin and the arcane archer should be able to take care of that mage. Do you need healing, or can Kyra (the cleric) help them?"
"Yeah, whatever, Crosis is fine."
Kyra left Crosis' side to help fight Khalib. Viorian Dekanti unleashed her first full attack round, dealing ~60 damage across 3 successful attacks.
"Oh, s%%~, I was at 18 HP. I'm dead."
"WHAT?"
So that's how that went down.
PC Name: Kyra
Race/Class/Level: Human Cleric of Sarenrae 17
Adventure: The Spires of Xin Shalast
Catalyst: Rescue mission to save Crosis partially foiled by storm giants
So the group retreated, and the giants relocked the door, with Crosis' body still inside. The problem was that Crosis had the groups' scroll collection, including a scroll of True Resurrection the group got from Morigiv after saving the skulks. The group assumed that they could not afford a real True Resurrection, though they had 50,000 gold on Kyra's character, and had somehow forgotten this.
So Kyra set off on a ethereal jaunt rescue mission to recover the scroll of True Resurrection from Crosis' dead body. I figured that since Karzoug's crew is pretty much 100% on "operation: bring karzoug to full power" that they don't have much time to deal with stuff like "giant dragon corpse in the hallway" and so Crosis was where they left him...only guarded by storm giants. Kyra phased back into the material plane and attempted to cast ethereal jaunt again, but failed her concentration check against the storm giant's attack of opportunity. She ran to the door and was able to open the door just as the giants finished her off.
The remaining arcane archer and paladin were able to flee with Kyra's body. They tried to bring someone back with the scroll, but failed the UMD check. At this point they realized that far from broke, they had a 50,000 gold dollar bill left in their pocket! So they teleported all the way back to Magnimar, resurrected Kyra, then used True Resurrection to bring back Crosis.
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Just cleared out the Seven's Sawmill just after dark. Ironbriar was expecting everyone and had an ambush set up, but the party trampled all over them.
After interrogating Ironbriar (and dispelling Xanesha's charm monster) they got Ironbriar to write a letter to Xanesha and request that she meet him. It was dark so they couldn't see where the raven went.
Xanesha already knew that the players had taken on the sawmill (they weren't exactly quiet about it) so she sent the scarecrow after them. Scarecrow got into the sawmill while the players were mostly sleeping (I assumed as a former resident the scarecrow knew his way around), and the Scarecrow's stealth was enough to get pretty close the rogue who was on guard.
So after the surprise round the rogue fell back, yelling, and the paladin got up and engaged, though she was not wearing her armor. She had AC11. She took a hit for 15 from an attack of opportunity, but decided not to use a lay on hands as she still had 55 HP and due to favored class bonuses and feats she heals herself 4d6+11 points per lay on hands.
The Scarecrow swings, power attacks... and crits. For 96 points of damage.
But wait! There's still a chance! She has the spell Heroes' defiance to lay on hands as an immediate action when she goes down. She does so, and heals 21 points. That's good... but that puts her at -20, still well beyond her CON of 14.
Had she done her lay on hands when she had the chance she would have been unconscious, but alive. :(
However, the party can afford a raise dead at this stage.
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Name of PC: Sigmund Vinder
Race/Class/Level: Human Magus 7 Eldritch Knight 2
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Skull Ripper...
Story: The party narrowly escaped certain death at the hands of Black Magga and so set off to open the floodgates at Skull's Crossing. Everything was going swimmingly (pun intended) as they killed all the ogres, trolls, and even Grazuul with a good deal of ease. The Skull Ripper was a different story, however. Tiny, the party fighter and tank, was affected by it's fear ability and ran away. This meant that Sig was the lone melee character left to engage and it... didn't go so well for him. On the first round of attacks he was clawed, grappled, and stung. On round 2 his head was popped off by good ole Skull Ripper and that was that. Thankfully Ayla, the party cleric had a Breath of Life prepared and I ruled that his head would be magically reattached.
Name of PC: Sigmund Vinder
Race/Class/Level: Human Magus 7 Eldritch Knight 2
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Skull Ripper's poison
Story: Upon being revived Sigmund ran out into Grazuul's chamber and immediately began failing his fort. saves to resist the Skull Ripper's poison. He had forgotten about the poison completely. Not long after the whole party ran away from the the Ripper in order to fight another day but no matter how hard they tried to keep him alive Sig was doomed to die from con damage. Afterwards, they successfully dealt with Avexial by lying to his face and watching him get dusted. With that ordeal finished they turned their interests back to recouping their losses at Fort Rannick and Magnimar. Sigmund was eventually reincarnated as a half-elf which is, funnily enough, his original race. Unfortunately for Sigmund, after being traumatized with his death so many times his cohort-love interest Shalelu decided she couldn't handle the emotional strain any longer and broke off their relationship. She will still, however, adventure with the party.