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So a few weeks back I had the closest thing to a total party wipe-out that didn't result in actually killing anyone, and I was wondering what other "close call" fights people have been in.
Mine goes like so (~lvl 5 party):
I was the DM at the time, all the party members save one had just been put to the floor by the BBEG (a raging barbarian), who turned to the last person (the fighter).
The BBEG broke their warhammer. The fighter stepped back and tried to shoot with their bow, missed. BBEG steps forward, breaks the bow. Fighter tries to punch them with their right gauntlet, misses. BBEG sunders the gauntlet. Fighter throws an offhand punch with the other gauntlet... and crits, killing them through sheer luck. One more round and the fighter would've been out of weapons and forced to trigger AoOs.
Also, the fighter was small sized and in heavy armor, the barbarian was medium sized in light armor. No running away here.
Oh, and I'm not sure how you can sunder a gauntlet and not hit the person, but since it's technically a weapon I just went with RAW on that one. And because the fighter was about a sneeze from death.
My closest call without actually being a party wipe was in a return to castle ravenloft. Party was 6th level with a paladin, a warmage and my scout (we had an npc fighter with us). We were supposed to talk to this ogre seer woman. She gives a proffesy and the proffesy determines the course of the rest of the story. He had had 2 fights prior to this situation. At her camp we get there and she reads are fortune. It turns out killing her becomes an objective by luck or something. She bolts and her camp of rogues attacks us. We fight them off with some difficulty and persue her, thinking she was running away. We find her eventually (tracking a fleeing ogre not a difficult task for my scout). So we get there, she is buffed up (she is some special kind of ogre mage) and has 2 other ogres with her. We start a fight, paladin and fighter engage the 2 ogres and the warmage and my scout attack her from range. The paladin drops, along with the npc fighter (we were already low and without healing between the 2 encounters). The warmage is down to wands by the time the 2 ogres are taken out (though very little damage is done to her yet). Then as I am moving to pour a healing potion down the paladins throat, a cloud giant (without any perception checks for us to notice him coming) crashes through the woods into the clearing and starts wailing on us. Paladin goes down again, I manage to stay away from him enough to take out the ogre mage, but he spends maybe 2 rounds droping the warmage (who managed to burn the last of his spells to do some descent damage before going down). So I was alone trying to manage a cloud giant. So the next 4 rounds consist of my character tumbling for his life (we at that point used a modified version of the tumbling rules where the dc to move through threatened squares was 15+bab of enemey) trying to get off skirmish attacks. Then the cloud giant would walk up to me, wail on me and i would tumble away again. With 1 hp left i got a lucky crit that droped him. The rest of the party was at -7 or lower when i poured a potion down their throats.
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We just put "Savage Tide" on hold, but through level 7 we had several near TPK's and only managed to get through with sheer luck.
The best one was when the party had just started down a rickity wooden pathway (bridge?) leading down a cliff face. The gnome cleric, halfling rogue, and human ranger were slowly making their way down when the bridge started to creak and threaten to fall in. My swashbuckler decides to slide down the railing and "catch" the halfling when the bridge falls (courtesy of the fourth person to walk on the bridge). Everyone fell to the water and only my swashbuckler didn't go into negative hps. My next action was feed a healing potion to the halfling, who then fed a healing potion to the ranger. The gnome was wearing full plate and sank to the bottom, then died. The rest made their way to the beach and didn't get to explore the caves because we were out a cleric, potions and hp.
The second best was last week. My swashbuckler got captured by a mind flayer in the previous session, so they were down the frontline fighter. The priest in the previous session had nearly died and came back as a partially ethereal creature. The rogue (nicknamed Kenny because this was the players 4th PC this campaign) accidently summoned some big evil creature while the priest was 20% ethereal. The priest had phased though a blocked door, into a room with an undead creature (don't remember what), and rolled on initiative the exact number needed to become completely solid so he couldn't phase back through. The undead creature pummelled the priest while the rogue got spattered by the summoned creature. Our warlock/Focused Wizard Unorthodox Illusionist Specialist/Eldritch Theurge summoned some more creatures to fight the BBEG while it killed our ranger and rogue, so the Warlock/FWUIS/ET high tailed it out of there, only to encounter the illithid and my enthralled swashbuckler (Tome of Secrets version) (both played by me). Basically, my swashbucker/rogue thrusted twice killing the Warlock/FWUIS/ET and then ran away with the mind flayer. The player with the Warlock/FWUIS/ET wasn't happy, but I was laughing hysterically, and since my guy survived I consider this a close call.
Was great to read about these events, makes you want to be there!
Any of you got journal pages with more detail on these adventures on the message boards or elsewhere?
StabbityDoom - Kudos to the little guy, I can see a god of war giving the hero some bonus. Though if you play deities as capricious you could follow up the boon with another challenge to see if the hero is 'worthy'.
Kolokotroni - Wow that was a close call. Not sure the Cloud giant was necessary, another Ogre would have been bad enough :P
Senmont - Rickety bridges are great. But that second adventure sounds pretty darned nasty. I think as a GM I would have thrown in some weak Deep Gnomes to aid you, even if it was just for a few rounds to offer a chance to escape. Maybe had the undead attack the Mindlayer since Undead are equal opportunity antagonists :)
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Any of you got journal pages with more detail on these adventures on the message boards or elsewhere?
Deep Gnomes would have died getting there. This was a 1st ed adventure thrown in and the party decided to fly directly to top of the tower, basically surrounding themselves with all of the toughest monsters. There was no chance at all, especially with their biggest damage dealer working for the bad guys.
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My favorite games are when I as a DM get my party on the ropes, I almost wipe them out, (or at least they are convinced they are hanging by a thread) and they manage to fight their way back and win.
Recently we had a pretty close fight. The party was at the end of the module in the campaign I am co DMing. I run one module, and my friend runs the next in the series. We had run into a bit of a problem. Well I saw it as one, and my friend didn’t. The series of modules we are running or campaign arc is 3.5. We are running pathfinder rules and using the medium experience schedule for advancement. We also have on average 7 players at a gaming session. So by this point in the campaign arc, the modules expect the party to be able to challenge a 9th level opponent. The party ranges from 2nd level to 4th level. Numbers can only make up for so much.
They were facing a 9th level cleric at the end of this particular module. The cleric had cast on her previously air walk, and a number of other spells included in her stat block. When the party came into the sanctuary where the evil cleric was waiting for them, they found her 20’ up in the air. After I bludgeoned them with some boxed text, which contained the villain’s soliloquy, hostilities began. I had her stand over the party and use her channel energy class feature. At 9th level it was 5d6 negative energy with a dc 14 will save. Initially it was devastating. I rolled a total of 28 points of damage. The fighter types failed their saves, while the spell casters made their saves. Everyone was a) dropped below 10 hit points or 5 in the case of he spell casters, and some were put into negative territory, the ones with fewer hit dice. Thankfully with the new pathfinder rules, of your negative hit points equaling your constitution saved the lower level characters from being killed outright. The clerics there were two 4th level clerics in the party, and they began using their Channel possitive Energy class features, so they began healing the party for 4d6 points of damage a round.
The rest of the party got their ranged weapons out and began shooting at the floating cleric. The party also sent their familiars and animal companions up to harass the floating evil cleric.
It took 5 rounds to bring the cleric down and the party managed to survive 5 rounds of 5d6 channel energy barely. I decided not to use the Slay living spells on the clerics spell list on the party, because I felt that would be tantamount to destroying a character rather then simply killing a character.
It was a fun fight. They all had a good time.
I was running a home brew a couple of years ago that resulted in one of our groups most fondly recalled encounters. It took place in a swamp and started when the party's bard was captured by a mind-flayer and his ogre thralls.
The bard escaped the swampy fort with a bugbear barbarian he had befriended along with a small group of NPCs the rest of the characters were in the swamp looking for. As the bard and his group fled the fort, the ogres put up chase.
As they crashed through the swamp, one of the NPCs gave a few quick blasts on a trumpet, alerting the main group of PCs to their general location.
At this point I had everyone roll initiative, and to manage things easier, I just had each group act on the highest initiative rolled amongst its members. Amazingly, fatefully even, the initive order was Group 1 (Bard and NPCs) then Group 2 (ogres) then Group 3 (main PC group)
Group 3 had the option of running toward the trumpet blast at their own respective speeds and splitting into smaller groups for initiative purposes or moving as one group at the slowest member's pace. They opted to stick together.
Round 1-
Group 1 stops and spins on the approaching ogres. A few NPCs take some ranged shots as the bard buffs his bugbear buddy with a wand.
Group 2 crashes into the NPCs and an ugly melee ensues.
Group 3 rushes through the swamp but is still 2 rounds away.
Round 2-
Group 1 puts up a strong front but only the bugbear is able to drop one of the ogres, leaving 7. The bard activates his bard song.
Group 2 pounds on more NPCs, dropping one of the dwarves into negative hp, leaving 3 general NPCs, the bugbear and the bard left standing in Group 1.
Group 3 advances... one round out.
Round 3-
Groups 1 and 2 continue to fight and the bugbear takes a nasty crit, though he drops 2 wounded ogres with a timely cleave. The bard realizes rightly that if the bugbear drops, he is toast, so he devotes all his actions to healing him with a wand. Another dwarf NPC drops, with the female human NPC in single digits.
Group 3 ends their turn one move action away and can join the fray next round.
Round 4-
Group 1 manages to kill one more ogre, leaving 3, but the bard watches in dismay as the remaining NPCs are slaughtered by the ogres. He continues to heal his bugbear ally who fails to land a successful blow.
Group 2 is bolstered by the arrival of their subcommander, an ogre mage and 2 more ogres. The bard and bugbear are burned by a fireball, but the bard luckily succeeds on the reflex save.
Group 3 charges into the fray, much to the bard's relief, but the ogre mage and 2 fresh ogres prevent all but one of the PCs from getting to Group 1.
Things are looking grim at this point and grumbles of "Here comes the TPK" begin running through the room.
Round 5-
Group 1 continues its previous strategy, let the bugbear swing and the bard heal him with a wand. The bug bear drops two more ogres with a cleave, but the bard pegs a natural 1 on the use magic device check.
Group 2 the remaining wounded ogre drops the bugbear and cleaves into the bard, critting on the cleave. Damage from escaping the fort, the fireball, and the crit leave the bard staggered at 0 hp. The two healthy ogres wail on the newly arrived party members as the ogre mage roasts them with a fireball.
Group 3 lays into the ogres, but the rogue misses all his attacks while flanking with the fighter. The warmage (from Complete Arcane) takes a shot at the ogre mage, but fails to beat his spell resistance with a Caster Level check of 16. The cleric from Group 3 heals the bard.
Round 6-
The bard is the only one still standing in group one and after telling the cleric to get the bugbear back on his feet, positions himself so he can get all of group in his bardsong and he begins to sing.
Group 2 pounds on Group 3, with one ogre landing a crucial crit on the rogue. The ogre mage, like a jerk, turns invisible.
Group 3 responds on the ogres in kind, with the rogue finally landing some solid strikes and getting some sneak attack damage. The fighter crits, leaving one ogre pretty wobbly. The warmage completely guessing at to the ogre mage's whereabouts, lets loose a cone of cold that catches both ogres and amazingly the ogre mage. He beats the ogre mage's spell resistance with a CL check of 20 and they all fail their reflex saves, killing one ogre and hurting the other one pretty badly. The cleric brings the bugbear back to his feet.
Round 7-
The bard and bugbear pull out a short bow and long bow respectively and start shooting at the ogre mage, revealed by the cone of cold. The bugbear misses, then remembers the bardsong and realizes he actually hit.
The last regular ogre focuses all his attention on the fighter, bringing the fighter down into the teens. The ogre mage blasts the bard, bugbear, and cleric with a lightning bolt, leaving all but the cleric in the single digits.
Desperate, Group 3 focuses most of their attention on the ogre mage. The rogue finishes off the remaining regular ogre with a solid sneak attack and the fighter takes a pot shot at the ogre mage. The cleric even forgoes healing anyone and shoots the ogre mage with his heavy crossbow, but fails to drop it.
At this point, all eyes turn to the warmage. If he doesn't drop the ogre mage, the ogre mage will surely drop them next round. The warmage casts his spell (I think it was an empowered fireball or lightning bolt) and rolls the damage. He rolls pretty well for the damage and looks up excitedly and asks if the ogre mage failed his reflex save. I simply replied, "That depends entirely on whether or not you beat his spell resistance."
The whole group groaned as despair began to grip them by their throats. Pensively, the warmage rolls his caster level check and gets... and 18. He throws his D20 in disgust, assuming that the last time he beat the SR he matched it. I wait a couple moments before confirming that the ogre mage's SR was, in fact, an 18 and that he also, in fact, failed his reflex save and was thereby reduced to -4 hp.
I had never before seen everyone jump up with a loud whoop and cheer and everyone start high-fiving each other like they did. Icing on the cake was the cleric was able to get to the female NPC before she hit -10hp.
Definitely a high point in my DM career, because everything would have been different if even the bugbear missed the ogre mage with his longbow. Or if the cleric healed instead of letting loose a solid heavy crossbow shot. It was an amazing encounter. Amazing.
Kolokotroni - Wow that was a close call. Not sure the Cloud giant was necessary, another Ogre would have been bad enough :P
You dont have to tell me that, this dm is very much a 'whats in the book is law' kind of DM. And I was pretty much like what the hell, I am a SCOUT, why dont i get a spot and listen to notice the CLOUD GIANT CRASHING THROUGH THE WOODS, I mean at least the caster could have moved to the other side of the clearing if we knew he was coming. We still make fun of the DM for that. Not to mention the ungodly CR of that encounter.
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Was great to read about these events, makes you want to be there!
Any of you got journal pages with more detail on these adventures on the message boards or elsewhere?
StabbityDoom - Kudos to the little guy, I can see a god of war giving the hero some bonus. Though if you play deities as capricious you could follow up the boon with another challenge to see if the hero is 'worthy'.
We did actually have a campaign journal, though I don't have access to it at the moment (maybe in about a week and a half, when I get back to school).
We were playing a custom campaign setting where elves, dwarves, gnomes and halflings don't exist, simply because i wanted to play something different. Instead there were Ralkians, Adyri, Aesivian and Genai, each complete with their own flavor and such. I'm even considering modifying the other races (such as orc and the like).Heck, since that campaign (a psuedo-playtest, I suppose) I've completely redone Adyri and Genai, and tweaked the other two. I may be tweaking aesivian again, though. I always get suspicious when a race is very popular or never played.
But yeah, hurray for the little guy! I let him use a die I knew was slightly loaded towards 20s and 1s for that last attack, figuring you go big or go home. Since then whenever I DM I allow players one use of that die per session each, and they can call it in for an opponent's roll instead of their own. This only applies to rolls they are aware of, of course.
I've both played and DM'd a LOT of close calls, but by far the best was a homebrew campaign I was playing in 3E as an alcoholic sorceror Kobold named Nibb.
Nibb started as a sort of party mascot after he was rescued in a dungeon and followed the party around. He didn't speak common (only understanding it) and the only words he would say outside of yapping Kobold (A language none of the rest of the party understood) were "Beer" and his own name. He was very, very odd though and the party was too scared of his unpredictability to try to shoo him away.
At this point in the campaign we were all around level 17. Our party found ourselves trying to survive on a wild island chain from both it's wild inhabitants, and the efforts of a neighboring kingdom led by a villain that specifically sought our demise. The villain had driven us to a section of island where we found an ancient ruin of some long-forgotten fort near the beach. Three of the defensive walls were still in good condition, but the ocean facing wall had crumbled and been washed out. Our party decided we had no choice but to use this place to make a last stand against the coming troops we knew were on our tails.
We had one day to prepare for the siege, repairing small breaches, setting up traps, digging trenches, and blockading the gaps from the ends of the walls into the ocean. When we were attacked, it literally was a small army that our party of only four were fending off. Initially we put up quite a fight, but eventually sea turtle transports carrying troops beached and distracted us long enough for ogres to breach the barricades in the walls. Nibb nearly exhausted all of his spells, but toasted the turtles and all of the troops they carried. The party fighter was able to down the last of the ogres, but his health was now down into the teens, the cleric was nearly out of spells, and the rogue was down to only a few arrows left. We were now fighting back-to-back in the middle of the ruined courtyard, and the last of our healing spells, health reserves, potions, and arrows were expended clearing the initial breach.
Seeing we were on our last leg, but still dangerous opponents, the remaining reserves of the attacking army ran to the top of the rampart walls out of reach. It came down to my turn, and everyone in the party looked at me expectantly. I had only two spells left, the only real options left to the party for any hope of survival. Nibb turned to the party, yapped at them in Kobold, saluted them with his mug and took a swig of his beer (He was actually trying to get drunk during the entire battle), then cast invisibility and ran off. The entire party stared at me in disbelief. It was the final moment, and I was abandoning them. The players were in a state of shock, anger, and despair. One was actually starting to roll up a new character. On the DM's turn, the soldiers formed up in a tight line formation along the wall and drew longbows, ready to kill the rest of the party in the courtyard below, firing squad style.
On my turn, Nibb came out of his invisibility standing on top of the wall on one corner, screaming at the top of his tiny kobold lungs, "BEER!" as he fired off his last spell, a maximized lightning bolt.
The entire remainder of the army was wiped.
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My favorite games are when I as a DM get my party on the ropes, I almost wipe them out, (or at least they are convinced they are hanging by a thread) and they manage to fight their way back and win.
Ditto for me.
I've had countless near-TPKs in my games. Most of them end up with one party member left up and fighting and them pulling off a lucky crit when they need it. I've fudged dice once or twice or just had opponents take less-than-optimal tactics if I feel I mis-judged the encounter and set them up for failure unfairly.
Memorable ones:
Last night, when the party defeated a bunch of warhulk mimics, only to get hit by lighting bolts from the dark naga that was controlling them (and had been invisibly observing the fight waiting for an optimal setup or PCs all in a line) we came close. The cleric went down hard and was close to dead, and only a lucky "cheater" card from the Dork20 deck let him play that to instead be at 0 next round, and able to channel energy to get better. Had he gone down and been in close danger of death, that might have deprived them of healing or eaten up valuable actions if they had had to jump on him to stabilize. That was a very swingy combat.
I had one TPI -- Total Party Incapacitation -- in my Greyhawk game. No one was dead, but everyone was down at a certain point. I had to quickly improvise and have the party taken prisoner by hobgoblins intent on enslaving them. Their resultant escape from captivity (naked and having to ambush their jailers in order to re-arm and armor) ended up being an incredible amount of fun and made the players play very smartly under bad circumstances. From that one incident also spread a major plotline of the game, as the blackguard leading the hobgoblin slavers became one of their major adversaries.
Usually, I find when things get crazy and characters are falling left and right, the party digs in and remembers some of the crazy one-shot items they have to burn -- I usually let them get away with some crazy things if they can justify it even loosely. Want to light two vials of alchemist fire and personally carry them into the gullet of the monster with "swallow whole"? OK, done deal. I think the extreme edge of being challenged to near-death is the best sort of scenario to run, you just have to know your players and figure out how they can handle that moment of panic when they realize things are getting really scary. I try to make escape always be an option, and at least give them some breathing room if they manage to pull of a fighting retreat.
Mine was a couple of weeks ago as well. We're playing Crypt of the Everflame and the PCs were 1st level and the encounter with the bombardier beetle just about wiped the entire party out. There were 4 PCs: a barbarian, a sorcerer, a bard, and a rogue. The barbarian went down, followed by the rogue, leaving just the sorcerer and bard to deal with the creature. I was worried for a couple of rounds, but they managed to win the day.
Barely.
Hyrum.
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I was once in a game where the party almost killed itself. There was a barbarian/cleric, rogue/shadowdancer (me), barbarian, sorcerer or wizard (forgot it was suck a long time ago), some kind of rogue psionic barbarian halfling that could run on walls and ceilings, and I think there was one more character, IDK it has been a while. Well, we all fell into this large pit and a rune that made us all enemies came into effect. So we all fought each other and took a bad beating, in the end we all survived but it was kind of fun fighting each other to death. (No one actually died as the effects made it so that the whole combat was in our head and no one actually took any damage)
I had a 6 character party (5 players and one NPC) at level one in a generally "low power" game (in sofar as high level NPCs are rare, not in the form of numbers, per se). The party contained a rogue who fought like a barbarian, two clerics, a sorcerer, a wizard, and a ranger. They were sent to investigate a graveyard where some people had discovered a robbed grave.
The first encounter was against two ghouls, who were a tough encounter, but not terrible. They managed to paralyze one of the clerics, but were killed rather quickly. They then proceeded into a hole they found beneath an empty grave, finding themselves in a cavern complex that lead into a roughly worked underground area.
Next up was a room with a pair of Spell Stitched skeletons. They each had a couple of Inflict spells stitched to them that they were programed to activate if they were injured. They also carried longspears. They dropped one cleric thanks to a lucky AoO before being destroyed, but the cleric was healed by the other cleric (it's important to note that neither cleric had Turn Undead, because they were clerics of a god who gave them ally boosting abilities instead).
The next encounter was with a kitted up elf swashbuckler wielding a knife. He was friend of theirs, but had been driven mad and was basically raging, using some pared down Frenzied Berzerker bonuses. The party didn't want to kill him, but they subdued him within a round with minimal damage.
Final encounter was with a handful of skeletons and a Vrock, using the Savage Species level progression to get him down to CR 1 (so he wasn't really a Vrock so much as a low CR outsider with a longbow). The party immediately began to withdraw from the dungeon.
The skeletons and vrock pursued, and the party utilized the narrow tunnels and difficult terrain to ensure that the severely injured PCs got out first. They managed to deplete the skeletons' numbers well enough, but the wizard was tapped out and relying upon his crossbow, the sorcerer was dropped and stabilized, and the rogue was dropped and brought back up. The party rallied in the entrance to the cavern, as they attempted to get back outside. After getting the casters out, the rogue climbed back down, failed his climb check, fell and dropped from the damage. One cleric dropped, and the wizard and the other cleric narrowly felled the "vrock." Had the second cleric dropped first, the first cleric was tapped out on healing, and the party would have suffered a casualty, no doubt about it. But they utilized a well executed strategic withdrawal, managing to use the terrain to their advantage. It's still talked about years later.
I was DMing a Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde campaign and the party was at the end of the second book. Warmage, barbarian, rogue, sorcerer, and cleric. They had just gone through several rooms of encounters and healed up putting them to about half resources except for the sorcerer who was completely paralyzed and blind from spider venom bites and some sort of disease from one of the enemy clerics and was being carried around strapped to the back of the barbarian.
Said enemy cleric went invisible and ran off into the last room of the dungeon before she got KO'd. The party chases her down following a trail of broken spiderwebs kicking their way into the lair of a huge fiendish dire spider.
The spider pretty much takes them all down round by round with the only person left being the barbarian and technically sorcerer. Barbarian tries to give a potion to the rogue forgetting that it provokes an AoO getting knocked into the negatives from the ensuing bite.
So now everyone is knocked out except the sorcerer. The barbarian is laying on the ground with an open potion bottle loosely in his grip. The sorcerer remembers that his familiar is still on him and so he has the rat run out and carefully work the bottle to the lips of the half-orc while the spider is webbing up the other party members (who are inches from death). The potion brings him back into the positives so he makes a stealth check to stand without alerting the spider and then does a full out Power Attack slaying beast. He get's a potion to the cleric and she picks them all back up.
The sorcerer remembers that his familiar is still on him and so he has the rat run out and carefully work the bottle to the lips of the half-orc while the spider is webbing up the other party members
This brought a huge smile to my face. That has got to be the best use of a familiar I have ever heard of!
The sorcerer remembers that his familiar is still on him and so he has the rat run out and carefully work the bottle to the lips of the half-orc while the spider is webbing up the other party membersThis brought a huge smile to my face. That has got to be the best use of a familiar I have ever heard of!
Haha! I can beat that! The familiar saved the party!!!
It was a party of 5 or 6, levels 1 or 2. I was a rogue 1, new to the campaign, with 6 hps. We were fighting kobolds in a dungeon, so we were able to move around a little bit between rooms. Anyways, I think most of the party was wizards or sorcerers or something, because PCs started dropping like flies. My rogue's tactic was to Hide/Move Silently into the room, then next round snipe and sneak attack and run out of the room, then re-load my x-bow as a move action and sneak back into the battle room as another move action, rinse and repeat. I had been hit in the first round with a kobold's crossbow for 5 damage, so I only had 1 hp. Eventually, I was hit and fell into negative hit points. So did everyone else. While the entire party was in negative hit points, the gnome wizard's familiar, a ferret, (not a DIRE ferret, just a regular ferret) killed the last 3 remaining kobolds.
In another campaign, it was d20 Modern, and our commando unit found a bomb of toxin in a big city. Neither of us was a demolitions expert, so we called commando headquarters and they told us to "Cut the white wire, then the blue wire." But we were distracted and attempted to cut the blue wire first! This would have detonated the bomb! But we rolled a natural 1 on the untrained Demolitions check, so we cut the wrong wire, which turned out to be the white wire, which was the right wire after all, so we saved the day and didn't blow ourselves up.
Our incompentence saved us! :-O
my most recent near TPKs?
An old temple to irori which had been swallowed by an earthquke some 30 years prior had been taken up by a pack of troglodytes. the party, after hearing about 'lizardman' raiders decided to earn a little pocket change and hunt them down.
a series of misadventures just getting to the temple ensue and the PC's are a little down on resources when they arrive at the temple. the final fight is in a room with a series of balancing poles suspended from over a pit of scorpions. By happenstance, all PC's bar the wizard wind up in the pit while chasing the tribal shaman.
This is where I'd brought out the new alchemist class for a trial (with a couple of monk levels). he was a little balancing deamon, hurling acid flasks, poison shuriken, alchemist boms etc..all while hopped up on his 'performance enhancers' and with the barbarian, the monk and the bard having to clear out scorpion swarms while they are at it.
in the final moments, the barbarian hurled her greataxe, which missed and sank into a nearby pillar. the wizard, a generalist, rips it out, casts magic weapon on the thing, and then uses hand of the apprentice to try and whack the troglodyte. She crits, and confirms, and gets an impressive damage (plus arcane strike, plus the bardic performance downstairs) and ends the troglodyte in a single hit.
The barbarian has declared the weapon to be 'sacred' now, and has it hanging in his hovel (afraid he'll lose the spirits favour if he uses it again). The monk regrets having no ranks in climb and is dedicating a chunk of her next few skill ranks to the skill. The bard is now terminally afraid of scorpion pit (and even has the harrowing ordeal in song) while the wizard has become just a little more smug.
Batts