To all my fellow DM's... TPK and DM saves is it something you allow and if so how often and under what circumstances so as to not break the "suspension of reality"? Just curious how other DM's handle theses situations.
In all honesty I am a pretty "Dice Fall as they may" kind of guy. However, I have had parties saved from TPK's in unexpected ways.
If this occurs however it has been in the rare occasion that they have become powerful and Famous/notorious enough to attract the attention/protection of an entity or group of entity's capable of performing this save.
I used to say that if the party wipes, the party wipes.
Then I had a party wipe at about 16th where they had an active favor owed to each of them by a high priest able to cast "True Resurrection". The high priest being lawful good cast the spell and brought each of them back to life, sans gear of course.
Excepting a case such as this were due to story reasons a party can recover from a wipe, I do not like Deus Ex Machina style moves.
Just to make things clear I almost exclusively DM.
This is just my opinion YMMV.
If it's the player or party doing something clearly suicidal, I'll probably ask "Are you sure? This sounds like a really bad idea to your character." Then if they insist on continuing, I'll let the chips fall where they may.
If it were a complete fluke (e.g. maximum damage from something the bad guys did), I'd ask the players to vote on how they wanted to deal with it.
EDIT: I mostly play instead of GM, and when I do GM, I'm a pretty big softy.
If it's a fluke or an error in judgement on my part as a GM then I will save them, but if it is bad judgement on their part they get no pity.
Probably depends on how 'character intensive' the campaign is. If you have personalized story hooks for individual characters...
TPK = Game over.
Game over = no more fun.
Fortunately I've never been involved in a true TPK, and my GM games never go very far... but when I DO DM, then yeah... Unless there is NO way out of it, I'd never allow a few poor dice rolls kill a whole campaign...
If it's a fluke or an error in judgement on my part as a GM then I will save them, but if it is bad judgement on their part they get no pity.
I agree to that. From being inexperiencedas a GM I've almost TPKd the party twice. One was with 4 Minotuars in an arena battle and once to 3 dire bears. Both were kind of my fault, once I realized my mistake, I invented a deus ex machina to keep them from dying.
If it falls to the dice, like it did once to a series of disembodied hands and some reeeeally good grapple rolls, it happens.
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If it's the player or party doing something clearly suicidal, I'll probably ask "Are you sure? This sounds like a really bad idea to your character." Then if they insist on continuing, I'll let the chips fall where they may.
If it were a complete fluke (e.g. maximum damage from something the bad guys did), I'd ask the players to vote on how they wanted to deal with it.
EDIT: I mostly play instead of GM, and when I do GM, I'm a pretty big softy.
Like a few above I am a "let the dice fall as they may" type of DM and rarely except A DM save for my characters. Our group pretty notorious for not backing down ever even if warned in game and out... lol.
If I see things headed for a TPK, I usually take action sooner rather than wait until it is a near-TPK. I will fudge a few dice rolls, have the NPCs make poor tactical choices, leave an escape route open. Nothing blatant, you don't want to make it look like your soft-balling the PCs because that usually generates about the same amount of discontent as railroading the PCs does. If the PCs can't or won't take advantage when the opportunity presents itself, well, that is too bad.
I never allow TPKs. If PCs make stupid decisions, I allow all but one of them to die so the story can continue.
As an example, recently all 3 PCs (+ 1 NPC) would have died due to a lightning bolt from a BBEG that would have killed them all (even the one who made her save).
After calculating damage, I realized that they were all going to die, so I reduced damage so that only 1 PC + the NPC died. The other two PCs survived because I reduced damage just enough to save one, and as a byproduct I saved the other.
PCs die regularly in my campaigns (a couple times per year, usually only 1-2 at a time) but a TPK means I have to start a new campaign, which I don't want to do. Either that or all new PCs that are the same level and for some reason a part of the same plot, which I also don't want to do because it tends to be cheesy. I'm certainly not a killer GM, but I don't want to have to restart my campaign all the time, either.
One PC in the campaign keeps surviving when others die, not because I have cheated as GM/CK, but because he is the most cowardly and runs when other PCs start dropping like flies (rogues . . . what can you do?). He has survived when the other players have gone through 2-3 PCs each. I kind of like that he's got that survivor guilt, and as a bonus we can keep all the plot threads going from the same campaign.
I roll in the open, don't fudge dice rolls, and don't always adhere to encounters that are "level-appropriate." That said, I use hero points, and also run a pretty open-ended game, insofar as the PCs aren't adventuring in a vacuum -- they can retreat, restock, recruit allies, or whatever else they think to do.
I've had a few memorable TPKs, including in the astonishingly deadly "Spire of Long Shadows," which the last party finally survived by using speak with dead on the bodies of their predecessors to find out what was coming up. Another one, which houstonderek will remember with fondness, wasn't strictly a TPK because one of the PCs was kept alive by the villain as a blind, crippled, gelded, and tongueless jester.
I used to fudge to keep the party alive, but over time, I noticed that the party seemed to worry less and less about the consequences of failure or having bad tactics. Since then, I've reverted to someone a wee bit more harsh.
Having said that, I will "remind" players of what they might be about to face (as a warning) - but if they go ahead and trudge in without planning...then so be it.
Of course, defeat in combat doesn't always result in (immediate) party death - it really depends on what's got them... and so it's possible something else happens -- as long as that something else makes sense in the context of where they are, what else is going on in the world, etc...
..and in those cases, there are usually some "permanent" fatalities and a loss of gear.... And, worse, really, because in some of those cases, probably wish they had died, really - especially with the way PF handles things like Ogres...
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I'm finding that I'm stopping more and more TPKs, and while I feel that I'm wussing out hard, it's usually because I like the players characters.
I'm running Kingmaker, and the players all made half-brothers, with awesome backstories that really flowed. It's made for a really fun dynamic. I had some large creature attack and didn't read the situation for it attacking correctly, and nearly destroyed the whole party. I backed off (lowered the damage on it) and they survived.
If they had done something stupid though... then they would be critter chow.
I won't save them, but I will often try to give them an out of some sort. If it's a monster, I might have it start munching on a downed pc. If they keep attacking and disturb it's meal they are SOL, but it they run it may just enjoy it's meal. I often have intelligent opponents take prisoners, that usually makes more sense than killing the PCs outright anyway, and as I've posted before I love running jailbreak scenarios. But again, if they don't surrender I don't hold back.
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I've had a few memorable TPKs, including in the astonishingly deadly "Spire of Long Shadows," which the last party finally survived by using speak with dead on the bodies of their predecessors to find out what was coming up. Another one, which houstonderek will remember with fondness, wasn't strictly a TPK because one of the PCs was kept alive by the villain as a blind, crippled, gelded, and tongueless jester.
Speaking with their dead prior PCs, I like that.lol
I agree also with Tilnar above consequences need to be upheld once in a while. I have fudge a roll or two in an unexpected TPK situation but if forewarned in game and given ample opportunity to retreat/gather more allies etc... well I guess as the DM you can't make everyone happy.
As has already been said; if it's something that's my fault as a Dungeon Master then I will adjust the encounter/sitution to prevent a Total Party Kill. Hopefully I can notice that things are going sour before it becomes a clear case of Deus Ex Machina and make the needed adjustements, but I've had times when I just went "Sorry, guys. I don't know what I was thinking when I put this together. Pretend that didn't happen and let me makes some changes real quick."
In general I tend to shy away from killing off all the characters as I like very character focused campaigns, which makes it hard to pick up with a new party. So while I'm also a 'let the dice fall as they may' I do my best to prevent Total Party Kill with some careful adventure planning before the game starts.
Of course if the party does something beyond stupid, they get what they get. However I won't punish the entire party for the poor decision of one player/character.
Lucky I have experienced players that make good use of tactics, resources and planning, so it doesn't come up very often.
I have never had a TPK in almost 30 years of running campaigns. My players say that's because they know I will TPK them iif they do something stupid enough. I do tend to kill a few characters on occasion. In my last gaming session our dwarf monk got separated from the party and one of my NPC monsters attacked him and would have killed him except I rolled a 3 on my surprise attack, and he withdrew and ran back to the inn his partners were staying at. Had he not run, he would surely have died, and his body may never have been found.
Sometimes it is good to have a reputation for ruthlessness. My players run away when they have to.
I recently ran return to castle ravenloft and almost had a tpk bu ti dropped the main monsters ac by 4 (she had drunk a potion of mage armor) basically making her impossible to hit. (ac28) the fighter was the subject of bestow curse -6 to str so they had no way of killing her at all. and the paladin had made a god roll at 01% out of 06% chance and after that it just hurt to much to do it. and i didn't want to be a jerk they ended up acid splashing her to death. i probably should of tpk'ed but i didn't want to have them lose a bunch of ground and make up more hooks and find out more info or misssomething or meta game so i fudged it they came out barely alive! but really happy. so i think it can depend. on the party and how you dm? do you plan all week on ways to murder every one of them like a modern day doctor doom? or try to make a adventure that they will survive but have a hard time doing so? or somewhere in between.
so i think it can depend. on the party and how you dm? do you plan all week on ways to murder every one of them like a modern day doctor doom? or try to make a adventure that they will survive but have a hard time doing so? or somewhere in between.
Neither -- I try to construct a scenario that's interesting, that's consistent with itself and with the rest of the setting, and that has a lot of possibilities and leeway for how it can be approached or tackled. My favorite adventures are ones I've written and then played with different groups... and had them play out almost like totally different adventures, with very little overlap.
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I too tend to play TPKs straight up with no coddling. I have one caveat though: we use Hero Points from the APG (we only use the points, no HP feats or spells). So I kind of cheat TPKs by introducing a mechanic that discourages TPKs from happening through their use in-game.
As a result I am able to play the dice as they lie and never worry about balancing encounters 'just right' or whether the party will TPK or not. Its a care free solution for my DMing style and we're all enjoying it.
I have also found HPs also helps players that have radically different play-styles. One player, for example, really prefers no-characer-death games while another player wants multiple characters and see several go to a horrible fate. With HPs Player #1 is allowed to hoard a minimum of 2 Hero Points (the points necesariy to avert outright death with a good explanation) while Player #2 spends his Hero Points to do wild and fun things but then occasionally his character does die a horrible death. Best of both worlds and even better, as the DM I typically don't have to worry about a thing!
To date we have had only 2 character deaths (1st - 8th) and a number of near-TPKs but no actual TPK yet. Continuity of course is the mother of story and TPKs do tend to disrupt that (hence why I discourage them in a hands-off sort of way) but outright disallowing TPKs to happen by DM fiat...that almost harms the game more by disrupting the sense-of-disbelief for my players.
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I don't think I'm a Killer GM, but I've seen a lot of PCs (like, somewhere around 25) die during my current campaign.
I'm sort of with Covent on this. I won't stop a TPK from occurring but, if the party has made some friends or if a particularly spiteful enemy wants the glory of dispatching the PCs itself, I might have the cavalry show up to haul them out of the fire. Sometimes, they might not even be conscious when it happens.
If the party runs off to somewhere they've got no support or if they don't tell anyone where they are going, they might have to rely on each other and some fancy dice-rollin'.
I have also found Hero Points also help players that have radically different play-styles. One player, for example, really prefers no-characer-death games while another player wants multiple characters and see several go to a horrible fate. With HPs Player #1 is allowed to hoard a minimum of 2 Hero Points (the points necesariy to avert outright death with a good explanation) while Player #2 spends his Hero Points to do wild and fun things but then occasionally his character does die a horrible death. Best of both worlds and even better, as the DM I typically don't have to worry about a thing!
Continuity of course is the mother of story and TPKs do tend to disrupt that (hence why I discourage them in a hands-off sort of way) but outright disallowing TPKs to happen by DM fiat...that almost harms the game more by disrupting the sense-of-disbelief for my players.
Yes, this has been my experience with hero points as well. A lot of DMs hate them because fudging (often done covertly) is often viewed as a DM prerogatove, and many DMs don't want to share that power with the players. Needless to say I don't share this view; I like hero points because they provide a strictly limited, quantifiable fudging mechanism that is character- and story-driven.
Players and DM's can get in over their head in many ways. For this reason I have allowed my groups to use Hero Points. I have stressed that keeping one or two in hand as much as possible will help keep your character alive.
Some players do not mind rolling up a new character, and so they send their Hero Points to try something cool. Others have a lot invested in their character and a death (or TPK) will really lower the overall enjoyment of the game. So they save up and only spend them when they are at the cap of 3 (or 5).
With the above said using Hero Points, a true TPK is very very unlikely. I have one or two players that always have one or two hero points kicking around and they can choose to spend them to save their own character... or maybe more then one based upon what the specifics of the fight are. This lets the players have some control of when they die or if they get stuck give them a way to "run away" and fight another day.
So yes, a TPK can happen... and it has happened in games of mine in the past. But never due to random chance and only because the players were willing to risk it... or nuked themselves to take out the big bad guy. (It was a modern game and they actually used a nuke...)
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To Be honest i never looked at hero points before... I mean I know about them but just glossed over it. Seems to be very popular in the posting... will take a closer look. I like the idea of being care free with honest dice rolls but they being able to save themselves if they have no spent their points on other acts.
Without having my book by myside at this moment... spending 2 hero points can save a PC from death but mechanically it has to have a good story as to how/why it happened? Or is it more of just an auto stabilization even if they were somehow killed beyond con score(we use alternate rules for death)?
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I don't enjoy killing PCs, and find it extremely counterproductive to story development, so I generally fudge dice rolls to prevent PC deaths. The sort of campaign I'm running has a strong influence on how lethal I get.
A Dungeon Crawl Classics old school dungeon crawl, where there is little plot and its mostly about testing yourself against a deadly dungeon? Maximum lethality.
A Pathfinder Adventure Path where the PCs develop relationships with NPCs and come to have a personal stake in the outcome of the adventure, and thus inserting a new character into the story is as awkward and weird as replacing Charlie Sheen on Two And Half Men? Fudge like crazy.
Without having my book by myside at this moment... spending 2 hero points can save a PC from death but mechanically it has to have a good story as to how/why it happened?
I ususally make the player come up with some fluke or coincidence that saved the PC, and I frown on needless repeats. Stuff like cigarette case from Johnny Dangerously, or the urine specimen from Never Say Never Again. The mechanics are the same, but the player has to come up with good fluff to cloak them in.
Nobody's brought up the potential for PCs to simply flee when combat isn't going their way.
Instead, GM ex Machina seems to be preferred.
Um.. excuse me? Isn't that exactly what I posted?
Nobody's brought up the potential for PCs to simply flee when combat isn't going their way.
Instead, GM ex Machina seems to be preferred.
I believe that was mentioned by both Thazar and brassbaboon. The way I expect to play the game is exactly in line with wraithstrike:
"If it's a fluke or an error in judgement on my part as a GM then I will save them, but if it is bad judgement on their part they get no pity."
Weeds out the fools. (I've noticed a STARTLING tendency for my druid to take damage whenever he rushes headfirst into combat. Like, it's REALLY wierd! Every single time!)
I roll out in front of my players and don't fudge my NPC stats so... yeah. When PCs die, they die.
Realizing this my players tend to run for their lives around the time one PC dies.
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I have only GM'd a few times and my preference is to let the player's dice fall where they may. most of the time, I will fudge the dice towards my goal in the story. Other times, I let the dice tell the story. Sometimes the randomness does lend an unexpected twist to the story.
I don't mind 'saving' the party if it is rare and lends itself well to the story, but then you HAVE TO make the players believe that it wasn't the GM that saved their butts...
Currently I am a player in a group that just does not work together very well. We also have a GM who often does not pay attention to the resources of the party. The combination often leads to potential TPKs and it is so obvious on his face that he feels guilty that he set up too difficult of a challenge. To 'correct' the situation, he pulls out some obvious and cheesy reason why we all live. It is a real let down. He is a really great guy and I know he feels bad if our characters die, but in the long run I think his decision to coddle the group is leading to a disintegrating game.
Another thing our current GM allows fairly easy access to is raise dead and reincarnation. Mortality is a great motivator, but when players know that they can just go down to the local temple and get a 2-for-1 on a Raise Dead, dying isn't such a big deal. If players are not afraid of dying, you really loose a lot of excitement.
I tend to agree with those who pull back if they caused the situation, but give the party everything they have if the party caused the situation. I find leaving both yourself and a party a logical exit strategy if things start to go unexpected is the best way to deal with it.
Once we had a ancient red dragon breathe fire on the whole party. Instant TPK, even for those who passed their saves and had energy resistance.
Our GM put the game on pause, and asked if we should institute Hero Points. Everyone said yes and the GM resumed the game. We all spent Hero Points to act out of turn and move out of the area of the breath weapon.
I'm not sure if that's what I would have done, but considering both the story and the players' fun continued, I believe it to have been a good move.
If it's a fluke or an error in judgement on my part as a GM then I will save them, but if it is bad judgement on their part they get no pity.
+1
Nine times out of ten that's exactly how I do it.
One thing that I think is being minimized in this discussion is why *not* to fudge - and for me the big one is this: agency. The Players need to feel that what their characters do matters. Without that, the game is meaningless, and quickly becomes unfun.
And I've been in campaigns where an NPC or GMPC would always "save the day" -- and others where our foes seem to have some slow-acting int-draining poison which took effect as the PCs got weaker (Maybe they had some sort of "good tactics" pool they were depleting?) -- and you reach a point where you realize that your super-good idea for getting the rogue into flanking position, or using melting down the candlesticks to (poorly) silver-coat some arrows to get past DR, or bottlenecking the oncoming swarm and forming a shield wall where you swap out with readied actions to neutralizing the enemy's numbers -- well.. none of them matter, because you're going to win anyway. At which point, why try?
And where's the fun in that?
And so, having been on the player's side of that --- I don't ever want my players to feel that way when I'm the one behind the screen (figuratively speaking, that is... I use a laptop for my notes and roll in front of them).
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They'll learn to run when they learn that they can die.Because PCs generaly don't run. So you kinda have to save them unless you want to end the campaign then and there.Nobody's brought up the potential for PCs to simply flee when combat isn't going their way.
Instead, GM ex Machina seems to be preferred.
But doesn't that destroy any chance of the game feeling heroic?
I mean, when do the heroes run away? Can anyone name any movies where the heroes run away? Books? I'm pretty well-versed in popular fiction/culture, and the only example I can think of is in season 7 of Buffy, when the Slayerettes under Faith's guidance get lead into a trap, have the butts handed to them, and escape - and that only happened to dramatize the need for Buffy's leadership.
I understand what you guys are saying about teaching players to play smart, but I have to admit, as a GM of twenty plus years, I find experienced players who learned to play under GMs to be, and excuse my language, absolutely chicken****. They play like weaselly little cowards, because they've been taught by other GMs that if they don't act like weaselly little cowards they'll die.
And the thing is, weaselly little cowards never do anything heroic. People who are totally concerned with their survival don't take risks, and taking risks is the heart and soul of heroism.
I get so frustrated and bored with players who play their supposedly heroic characters like craven little dogs afraid of their own shadows, but I know exactly where it comes from: lethal GMs. I've played under lethal GMs, and you learn very quickly that bravado, heroism and risk-taking no only won't be rewarded, you'll be punished severely for them.
There's no place for Mal Reynolds, Mad Martigan, Han Solo, Indiana Jones or other heroic archetypes in a game where the GM punishes players for being stupid - because the line between heroism and stupidity is pretty blurry.
I mean, yeah, you're 100% right: They'll learn to run when they learn they can die. But they'll stop being heroic when they learn to run. Because heroes don't run away.
This conversation reminds me of a (2E) campaign I played in years ago. The first session the DM tells us that we're in this village and that to the north is great danger and to the south is safe passage. So we go north. Then (1st level party!) he attacks us with twelve hippogriffs and we get slaughtered to the man. And after the battle I cried BS on the whole encounter - it was completely unbalanced and we never stood a chance. And he's like "Well, duh, I told you there was danger to the north, and you're the idiot who decided to go North. If you're just going to be stupid you're going to get killed."
And I was just stunned. I was like "Do you not understand this is an adventure game? And that when you say "Danger north, safe south" what I hear is "Adventure north, boring south"?" What kind of hero runs in the opposite direction of danger?
This is why I don't like lethal DMs. I like to play heroic characters, not chicken**** opportunists and cowards. But the thing is that chicken**** opportunists are smarter than heroes.
That's something I think just gets left out of these discussion: how much GM styling influences play style, and how a lot of traditional GMing styles are really antithetical to the concept of heroic adventure.
To all my fellow DM's... TPK and DM saves is it something you allow and if so how often and under what circumstances so as to not break the "suspension of reality"? Just curious how other DM's handle theses situations.
When I run games, usually Rifts, I don't stop the party from wiping, I find that there's very little need to do so. I also don't put them up against overwhelming odds unless I'm going to give them a chance to plan an attack against it. I've seen them come up with some very interesting solutions for 6 people taking out a base of 200 soldiers. I find that presenting a challenge to the players and giving them a few moments to think about it usually yields very interesting things happening, and people having more fun.
I do on occasion kill a character because the player should have known better, and that leads to players playing smarter, but I've never had a TPK.
Well, unless the person is new to playing pen & paper games, in which case I'll cut them a little slack.
Then again, I also use a GM screen so that the players can't see my dice rolls, so its easier to make the combats as close as I want them.
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I mean, when do the heroes run away? Can anyone name any movies where the heroes run away? Books?
All the time, really.
E.g. the hobbits running away from the Ringwraiths in Lord of the Rings.
Luke Skywalker's running away from Darth Vader constantly up until the end of Return of the Jedi when he finally doesn't.
The good guys spend almost the entire first Matrix movie running away from Agents, and even in the second movie people who aren't Neo still mostly do.
The good guys in Firefly/Serenity run away from Reavers all the time.
Etc.
One thing that I think is being minimized in this discussion is why *not* to fudge - and for me the big one is this: agency. The Players need to feel that what their characters do matters. Without that, the game is meaningless, and quickly becomes unfun.
+1.
As a player, a game in which I realize the GM won't kill players is a game I'm quickly bored with. And let's be honest, we could snow each other about this when we were all in high school but as adults, not so much.
This is why I don't like lethal DMs. I like to play heroic characters, not chicken**** opportunists and cowards. But the thing is that chicken**** opportunists are smarter than heroes.
That's something I think just gets left out of these discussion: how much GM styling influences play style, and how a lot of traditional GMing styles are really antithetical to the concept of heroic adventure.
As a GM with a reputation of being lethal, I'll respond to this.
Heroic characters who ran away:
Achilles, in front of Troy. Unwilling to face Hector until Hector killed his closest friend.
Odysseus and his entire party from the Cyclops. Not only ran away, but were captured and imprisoned and forced to watch the Cyclops eat their friends. Very heroic that Odysseus.
Gandalf, fleeing from Orthanc on the back of an eagle. The Fellowship, fleeing from the Balrog and orcs in Moria.
Beowulf from the Grendel.
Heroes running away from superior power is not merely a recurring theme in myth and fiction, according to Joseph Campbell, the author of "The Power of Myth" (which is considered to be THE DEFINITIVE work of story telling) who explains that any true compelling story is characterized by the hero being defeated time and again by his foe until he finally manages to overcome the enemy in a final confrontation. Myth after myth and story after story carries on this tradition. George Lucas invited Campbell to Hollywood and discussed this with him as he was writing "Star Wars." How many times did Luke, Han and Leia run away from Vader? Four times? Five times?
But forget all about that. Let's just focus on the game experience.
To me I want my choices to matter. That means if I succeed and survive, I did so because of MY wits, not because of the GM's desire to give me a false "heroic" experience.
If you want to play that way, then fine. But the great majority of players I've played with and ran campaigns for have all told me that they prefer to have consequences for their actions and to feel like they've BEATEN the odds, not had the odds stacked in their favor.
I will continue to run campaigns that are "lethal." I've never yet had a player leave a campaign for that, or any other, reason. Far from it. All I ever hear is that I run great, immersive campaigns that really let them get into the skin of their characters, and they feel a real sense of accomplishment when they succeed.
And THAT's more than heroic enough for them and me.
...SNIP Without having my book by myside at this moment... spending 2 hero points can save a PC from death but mechanically it has to have a good story as to how/why it happened? Or is it more of just an auto stabilization even if they were somehow killed beyond con score(we use alternate rules for death)?
It really depends on what is going on. One point can be spent to either act out of turn, or to get another standard action. This can allow people to save themselves before they "die" by getting some extra healing or defensive buff in place. They can also get out of the line of site of a threat.
They can spend two points if they are already past the point of no return to be able to live. If they can give me a good story to go with it I let them implement it. If for example they are surrounded by bad guy mooks when the dragon breaths, the player can say I grab one of them as a shield to save myself. In this case I may give them the effects of Improved Evasion for the single save. A failed save is half damage and a made save is zero damage. If they player does not come up with something clever... then by the rules they default to 1, 0 or -1 HP based upon the situation and my ruling.
In one game a player spend two points after being hit by a disintegrate ray that would have killed him... he said he wanted to take out a pillar in the building (bar) and bring the roof down. This allowed the players to "get outta there" before the deadly fight had a chance to happen. They we not prepared for that level of a fight in the bar and did not know who they were getting in a fight with.
They did have to make some rolls and took some damage as the building started to collapse... but it was better then the alternative for them.