They only had one cleric along, and it was the cohort - who promptly got "savaged" without being cured?!? That, plus being two players down, would have been a serious handicap.
On the other hand, if it suited everyone's plans that the world be broken down and then re-made in the shape of 4e ... then I guess bad luck/tactics/whatever would have almost been suitable.
And I do like your final quotation there! :)
Damn. Now THAT'S a quote to go out on.
Please tell me you either ended with that quote or described how Demogorgon drained the life and soul from their body like wine and dregs from a skin!
They only had one cleric along, and it was the cohort - who promptly got "savaged" without being cured?!?
To be fair, healing HP could be easily done by other party members between battles (thanks to wands of Cure Light Wounds). It was the other uses for a cleric that started to be a problem.
I was prepared to make it tough (and for a TPK if it came to that), but all of it together made the situation a lot more one-sided than I had hoped. I still felt terrible beating on them while they were down.
I must admit that I still find it slightly mind-boggling that they went in there with so little divine aid. Wands of CLW??? In what they _must_ have known would be an absolute meat-grinder?
<Head thumps desk.>
At that encounter level the cleric(s) should be handing out Mass Death Wards, 250 hp Mass Heals, Revivifies (immediate Raise Dead without the penalties, if done within a round of death), and all the rest of the divine spellcasting package. Not a measly 1d8+x from a wand for many rounds in a row after the end of combat. Or was it a Staff of Healing at the very least?
(/end rant)
Okay, to each their own. Despite the TPK, I hope that everyone at least had fun. Sometimes the most disastrous defeats are the stories that live on, bringing smiles in retrospect.
Well, now you have a good excuse to make your next Greyhawk campaign into a Points-Of-Light setting. I actually think this could be a good adventuring environment; about 2/3 of the cities of the world in ruins, nations in turmoil, international politics lost. Major cities like Greyhawk are probably too big for a single shadow pearl to consume them, so they might be only partially devastated - this brings a whole new meaning to "hellish slum".
Overall, I like the idea a lot.
...After all this, Demogorgon won the final battle; destroying the PC’s, their world, and much of the multiverse (his combined halves went on a spree). Not a big deal, since we were switching to 4e anyways (and this fit right in), but it goes to show that sometimes the world just doesn’t get saved in time.
...
- All six players were normally very reliable, but two of them couldn’t make it to the final session (one we didn’t learn about until after the session had started).
...
All this together made the final, epic battle pretty lop-sided.
"Hey guys! So, how did the game go last night?"
"Oh, pretty good. We all died, the world was destroyed along with a near infinite number of universes."
“Holy Frack!!”
That’s what happens when you miss the dénouementof two long running epic campaigns. I bet those two players are feeling really salty now.
I gotta admit, though, if it was the Great Big End Game battle, I think I would have put the game on hold, especially for players who are otherwise generally reliable.
Always liked how smoothly ST fits into 4th Ed, Either Big D is split and lost the sum of his powers or a inexperience new Demon lord may rise. Either way as per one of the "suggestions" at the end of STAP Asmodeus launch as assult against the Abyss and da da-da da-da, read 4th Ed DMG.
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Either way hope you had fun, in my experience the greatest blunders in D&D end up to be some of the greatest stories... or future plot hooks.