Carrion Crown Obituaries

[Level 1 Commoner]

The forum seems to have eaten the editing of my last post. So you have to live with my horrible english I guess.

Yes, this is probably not a good place for that kind of discussion. But I'm more than a little bit frustrated right now. And I can easily blame the player for his decision with the animal companion. But the Circle of Death was my fault. I rewrote Vrood completely except for this spell. I used it at his signature move to kill the professor. The players knew this from their investigations in Book 1. I used the vision at the Stair of the Moon not as a foreshadow what will happen (there is a reason why this age is called the Age of lost Omens) but what happened in the past beginning with Tar-Baphons defeat at Aroden's hands and ending with Vroods murder of professor Lorrimor. My intuition told me to switch out this spell but I didn't do it due to this absolutely superfluous plot reason. Now I'm as angry about myself as I'm angry about this particular player. [/rant]

[Galnörag]

Charlie Bell wrote:

NobodysHome wrote:

I'm curious...
** spoiler omitted **

Happy circumstance.

** spoiler omitted **

Spoiler:

Vrood can be made more effective (that pesky circle of death not working after 9 hd with 1 mythic tier, and taking circle of death as a mythic spell. He gets to add his tier to the max HD, so you can get those 10th level players :)

[Dragonshade]

Name: Cyrus Bearslayer (& companion dog, Ruffles)
Race: Half-Elf
Classes/levels: Inquisitor 4/Monk 2
Mythic: Hierophant 1
Adventure: Trial of the Beast
Location: Schloss Caromarc
Catalyst: Erinyes trap

The Gory Details::

Group didn't like the look of that rope bridge one bit. Upon the summoning of the erinyes, the major tactical choice was to run to the other side, and barricade themselves beyond the door to the lobby. This was largely a success despite the barrage of flaming arrows. Though successful, the insistent fiend broke the door down anyway and hit the nicely clustered team of investigators with an Unholy Blight. It was simply too much for the Cyrus and his newly acquired faithful hound. They will be remembered.

[Victor Zajic]

Level 1 Commoner wrote:

The forum seems to have eaten the editing of my last post. So you have to live with my horrible english I guess.

Yes, this is probably not a good place for that kind of discussion. But I'm more than a little bit frustrated right now. And I can easily blame the player for his decision with the animal companion. But the Circle of Death was my fault. I rewrote Vrood completely except for this spell. I used it at his signature move to kill the professor. The players knew this from their investigations in Book 1. I used the vision at the Stair of the Moon not as a foreshadow what will happen (there is a reason why this age is called the Age of lost Omens) but what happened in the past beginning with Tar-Baphons defeat at Aroden's hands and ending with Vroods murder of professor Lorrimor. My intuition told me to switch out this spell but I didn't do it due to this absolutely superfluous plot reason. Now I'm as angry about myself as I'm angry about this particular player. [/rant]

If your players can't cope with PC death, this might not be the campaign for them. they might enjoy something like Jade Regeant a lot more.

[Wyrd_Wik]

Chalk another kill for Clanartus at the stables in Thrushmoor. Failed Fort and death strike on a gnomish sorcerer.

[Rakshaka]

Wyrd_Wik wrote:

Chalk another kill for Clanartus at the stables in Thrushmoor. Failed Fort and death strike on a gnomish sorcerer.

That takes him out of his 4 way tie and puts him at #7 for the badguy in the AP with the most kills. I'm sure his creator will be delighted.

[Valkir]

Name: Six-Shot
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Gunslinger_2
Adventure: Haunting at Harrowstone
Location: Ravengro - Harrowstone memorial
Catalyst: Gibs, unleashed!

The gory details:

Long before one player declared she wanted to switch characters (Really?? You just made 2nd level!!) The town fight with Gibs was set up. As Gibs was a devout woman hater, he would likely have targeted her in the first place. With the choice made I really saw no need to hold Gibs back. Fortune smiles on the prepared, and when the party confronted Gibs, the lady gunslinger was the first to run up. Gibs grappled and pinned her to the ground. The rest of the party moved in but Gibs threatened to kill her if they did not back off. Though they all stepped back at least 5 feet, they would not leave as demanded, and one fighter (why did I agree to chaotic neutral??) took a step up. That was all Gibs needed as an excuse, and he performed a coup de grace. 2 days later the next "mysterious stranger" showed up at Kendra's home.

[Zhangar]

FYI, a pinned person isn't actually helpless, and isn't a valid target for a coup de grace.

Now, if Gibs had already punched her out and had her unconscious body, that'd be another matter.

[Valkir]

The pinned condition and the helpless condition both use the word "bound" in their description. While helpless says they have an effective Dex of "0" and pinned only denies a Dex bonus (if any). Pinned lowers AC by 4, while helpless applies a +4 to melee attacks. There are similarities, but the biggest difference is how the Dex is handled.
In the end, by RAW, you are right; pinned is not the same as helpless. For the story at the time though, it made sense, and the scene worked and did what it had to.

[Victor Zajic]

Valkir wrote:

The pinned condition and the helpless condition both use the word "bound" in their description. While helpless says they have an effective Dex of "0" and pinned only denies a Dex bonus (if any). Pinned lowers AC by 4, while helpless applies a +4 to melee attacks. There are similarities, but the biggest difference is how the Dex is handled.

In the end, by RAW, you are right; pinned is not the same as helpless. For the story at the time though, it made sense, and the scene worked and did what it had to.

Even if pinned was helpless, it's not possible to both keep someone pinned AND coup-de-grace them.

Hopefully your players won't decide that they want to start using this tactic against you.

[Ermehtar]

Aquila Nero, level 8 archaeologist bard, died in the fight against Auren Vrood.

The Details:

Had four people in the radius for circle of death, and I rolled enough HD to get 2 of them. The paladin was an obvious, default target, and the dice selected poor Aquila. He failed the save, but we have been using the harrow card system, and the group had two re-rolls. After he failed both of those, too, we decided it was just meant to be, and poor Aquila went up to join that great reliquary in the sky.

Funnily enough, the player whipped up an archery ranger for his new character who got the death attack from Clarnaytus in the next session. Made his fort save by ONE. He's beginning to live in fear of his dice. =P

[Glendwyr]

Schloss Caromarc has been unkind to my PCs so far. I've a larger group, so they're a bit behind in XP although very close to level 6 at this point.

Name: Zacharia
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Inquisitor 5
Adventure: Trial of the Beast
Location: Schloss Caromarc Gatehouse
Catalyst: Grork

The Gory Details:

Spoiler:

The party elected to attack the trollhounds in front of the gatehouse from range, which alerted the trolls inside. The party advanced on the gatehouse under fire, forced their way inside, and were cheerily slaying the trolls waiting there for them.

Since the party was finding this far too easy, I decided to have Grork leap off of his tower and come around behind the party. Zack saw the troll coming and stepped in front, crying "We are attacked from behind! I'll hold yon foul beast off..."

On Grork's next turn, he hit Zach with all three of his claw/claw/bite attack routine, and the rend tore the unfortunate inquisitor's body in half.

Names: Sonja Valorian, Montgomery Sebastian Williams III, and Aerlinniel Ithilriell
Races: Human, Human, and Half-Elven
Classes/Levels: Ranger 5, Wizard 5, Bard 5
Adventure: Trial of the Beast
Location: The Rope Bridge
Catalyst: Poor Planning and Terrible Tactics

The Gory Details:

Spoiler:

The party finished with the rust monsters and decided to press on despite some subtle hints that they might want to rest. In order to cross the bridge, they sent their rope of climbing across to form a sort of extra hand rail and then tied themselves to the rope, figuring that this would help them in case they slipped and fell. The paladin was uncomfortable with this plan and had Monty levitate him. He was followed by the fighter, the oracle, then Monty, Aerlinniel, and Sonja last.

As the paladin got to the half-way point of the bridge, the erinyes was summoned, and rolled very well on her initiative. The fighter was first and, cursing his lack of investment in quality ranged weapons, ran for the living museum, with the floating paladin being tugged along behind him like a balloon. The erinyes shot the oracle and Sonja, but fortunately no one fell off, and the rest of the party retreated back to the Alchemy Wing.

From there, Sonja made the mistake of taunting the erinyes. "I'm the best archer here, hell-fiend!" she yelled, after begging for some healing. She took a single shot and actually hurt the erinyes before ducking for cover in the doorway over the stone bridge to the manse.

Unfortunately, the erinyes was fast enough that she flew over and got line of sight and took a shot in reply, which was a nigh-max damage crit and killed Sonja instantly. "Who's the best archer now?" she gloated as Sonja crumpled to the floor with a flaming arrow sticking out the back of her head.

All this time, the paladin and the fighter were securely over in the living museum, ruing the fact that between them they'd spent about 100 gp on ranged weapons. Since the oracle's best ranged weapon was a nonmagical crossbow and Aerlinniel wasn't exactly doing much damage either, Monty took it upon himself to win the fight and though he had already undone his safety harness, he heroically stepped out onto the rope bridge, whereupon he fireballed the erinyes and did, of course, no damage.

On her turn, the erinyes shot Monty, who failed his acrobatics check, failed his reflex save, and hit the water below with such force that he broke his neck and died.

Aerlinniel, as the party's last remaining archer, took this opportunity to run to the manse, hoping to catch the erinyes in a crossfire. On her next turn, she stepped back out from behind cover and hit the erinyes with a single shot for piddly damage. "Selene," she yelled for the oracle, "step out and get this beast in a crossfire with me!"

Selene, still equipped only with a nonmagical light crossbow that had only been fired twice in five levels, thought better of the suggestion and heroically hid behind a table in the alchemy wing. Alex and Sam, the fighter and paladin, had already decided to lure the erinyes into the living museum, and were waiting in the foyer for her, weapons drawn and ready.

Thus, when it was the erinyes' turn again, the only person she could even see was Aerlinniel, all out on her own. The erinyes took a full attack at point-blank range, hit all three times, and did far more damage than Aerlinniel had hit points remaining, slaying the bard as well.

At this point, I was concerned that I might have a TPK on my hands, the erinyes still having 5 rounds or so to spend in trying to off the remaining characters... but fortunately, Selene lived through the encounter by playing dead and the paladin and fighter in the museum managed to at least last long enough that they ended up with about 15 hit points between them when the spell ran out and the erinyes finally disappeared.

[NobodysHome]

I know I'm going to get yelled at (again) for saying it (again), but any PC that doesn't have some kind of ranged weapon deserves what he/she gets.

Seriously... a paladin with a friggin' hand crossbow Smiting Evil would do some major damage in the aforementioned fiasco. Reading about yet another group where the major damage dealers (fighter, paladin) aren't carrying ranged weapons just makes me sigh and shake my head.

[Blackbot]

Let's see...
Ranger: Ranged Weapon.
Archaeologist: Ranged Weapon.
Paladin, Sorcerer, Cleric: No Ranged Weapon.

I really think the erinye might bring the party their first death. Well, if they don't have hero points to cheat death, that is...
Though I wanted to give them a little armory with a shortbow and arrows anyways because the ranger arrived with 20 arrows, forgetting that she shoots 4 arrows a round. So that might save them.

[MurphysParadox]

Now now, this thread is primarily for reporting deaths, not so much on discussing them.

The Erinye is a Very Hard Encounter at this point in the game and a good learning experience for players regardless of their character's ability to survive the mess. Though losing 3 in one fight is definitely rough, hopefully you can turn it into a teachable moment.

[NobodysHome]

Oh, yeah. She was nasty enough she killed our rogue outright and the player declared the AP "too mean" and quit our campaign, never to return. I know she's an insanely nasty encounter. And I will henceforth keep my editorial comments on parties without a sufficient number of ranged weapons to other threads. I stand corrected! :-P

[kaineblade83]

Name: Valdin Trap-springer
Race: Varisian Half-elf
Classes/levels: Rogue 2
Adventure: Haunting of Harrowstone
Location: Ravengro
Catalyst: The Restless Dead
The Gory Details: Our party (rather two of our party, the fighter and myself), saw a group of locals being accosted by a couple of drunks. Upon closer inspection, however, they were revealed to be zombies hassling the locals. We intervened and Valdin shoved one of the locals, who was being flanked, away from the zombies, taking their place. The zombies crit him (yes, both), and the poor rogue met his end, unable to stabilize before we got him back to the healer.

MORAL: It's a trope for a reason- NEVER SPLIT THE PARTY!

[Brofessor X]

Name: The Splatter Man
Race: Human Ghost
Classes/levels: Mid-level Wizard
Adventure: The Haunting of Harrowstone
Location: Basement Levels of the Prison
Catalyst: Two Exorcists from the Far Side of the World
The Gory Details:

The party has only two players, a Tengu Cleric of Shizuru and a Kitsune Synthesist Summoner. They were level 5 due to advancing the progression to balance it out with the two-man adventure.

Here's what happened:

Spoiler:

After easily dismissing the Letters Haunt, the Splatter Man decided to appear before the PCs in his full glory. The PCs laughed a little as they won initiative and the cleric cast his katana spiritual weapon to wail on the Splatter Man while the Summoner cast Shield on himself. The Ghost Wizard failed to identitfy the spell cast by the synthesist and tried to cast one of his magic missile at him, which failed. He then glided back and through a wall in an attempt to be clever. The cleric came up again, and he sent his spiritual katana to curve around the wall and attack the ghost some more while at the same time lazily casting Chain of Perdition and sent it to entangle the ghost in its links of force. The Kitsune cast shield on the Cleric next, and moved in to block the exit of the cell the ghost had retreated into. The Splatterman, now entangled in chains of force, was unable to glide through walls and attempted some kind of touch thing on the Kitsune. Either way, the following rounds involved the Splatterman being beat down by a spiritual weapon, channneled energy, and a flurry of magical attacks from the Kitsune, all while being dragged and pinned by the chain of perdition which had by this time anchored its hooks onto the bars of the cells.

It was probably the most anticlimatic boss fight in all my gaming history.

[Keep Calm and Carrion]

The Splatterman has a Spellcraft of 16. He cannot fail to identify the Shield spell as it is being cast, even if he rolls a 1, and so wouldn't have wasted his action.

Shield has a range of Personal. A summoner may not cast it on another PC.

Spiritual Weapon and Chain of Perdition both have durations of rounds/level. The Splatterman could step into a wall for the 30 seconds those spells last, then step back out to rain Magic Missiles on the unshielded cleric. Alternately, if entangled, he could Dispel Magic the Chains of Perdition.

I imagine your players would still win the fight, but it shouldn't have been the blowout you describe.

[Joey Virtue]

As a Summoner you can cast spells with the range of personal on your Idiolon

[Keep Calm and Carrion]

I'm pretty sure the Cleric is not his eidolon.

[Joey Virtue]

Oh I didn't read it who he cast shield on
See what you get when you assume things lol

[MurphysParadox]

Name: Chulainn
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Druid 5/Nature's Warrior 5/Master of Many Forms 3
Adventure: Ashes at Dawn
Location: Top floor of the Abbey of Sante-Lymirin
Catalyst: Hetna Dublesse, baleful polymorph, and a lightning bolt

Name: Heisuke
Race: Half-Elf
Classes/levels: Wizard 13
Adventure: Ashes at Dawn
Location: Top floor of the Abbey of Sante-Lymirin
Catalyst: Hetna Dublesse, unwilling shield, and the party's Monk

The Gory Details:

So after the players skipped back to town from the abbey (see previous obit. entry for the death of the party's bard) and took time to recover/meet their new Swashbuckler, the witch sisters decide to prep some fun times for the PCs return. When the party approached the Abbey, Hetna hit the Swashbuckler with Waxen Image. While the players entered the basement via the well and dealt with the vampire sister, the upstairs sister and her pet gnome illusionist set a trap.

They set the trap in the main laboratory of the second floor. First, the illusionist used a wand of Still Image to place wall segments over all the doors and hallways but for the one from bell tower into the hallway which leads to the laboratory and Hetna placed a Symbol of Guarding with Ill Omen in the hallway. When the players rang the bell and pulled it down through the tower floors, they buffed (mirror image, stoneskin, invisibility, etc) and the illusionist dropped a still image in the hallway such that it looked like the hallway continued without issue. Then as they got to the second floor to exit the only way they could, Hetna dropped mind fog and the gnome cast Tiny Hut so that it the edge lined up with the Symbol and the still image was just on the other side.

The Inquisitor lead down the hallway, through the illusion then the hut then the symbol then the mind fog in a few inches of movement. He failed his Ill Omen-modified save against Mind Fog and then was Charmed by a waiting Hetna who told him to wait on the Terrace. Next through the hallway was the Swashbuckler who's waxen image was used to send him jumping out a window (though he used celestial armor to fly back in). The rest of the characters were pretty... timid about things by this point.

By the end of the fight, Hetna was in the side hallway with the Monk behind her and the Swashbuckler in front of her. Right beyond him was the baleful polymorphed Druid-as-cute-kitten and then the Unwillingly Shielded wizard. She raised her hand, passed her concentration checks, and lightning bolted the Swashbuckler (passed save and evasion took care of it), then the kitten/Druid (poor guy, never had a chance), and finally the Wizard.

In the end, the Monk hit Hetna so hard that it killed the Wizard outright (he didn't really understand what the spell was doing and thought maybe the wizard would live). Then the Swashbuckler finished her off. The druid's animal companion Lug woke up (Cloak of Dreams is great fun) and whimpered over the kitten-shaped pile of charred fuzz and the Inquisitor wandered back in wonder what the big deal was.

Epilogue:

The Wizard and the Druid decide to end their careers and take off for home. Part of the concern is that the Druid became a kitten and then died, so if he were to be raised or rezzed, he'd come back as a kitten but without his gear (seemed a convenient way to rule) and reincarnate wouldn't get the gear back, though he did take that path and turned into a Halfling.

The party said goodbye to the twice-died Wizard and the thrice-almost-died Druid and welcomed a Barbarian and a Magus to the group (who died two fights later to an Elder Lightning Elemental and an unlucky strike from a Mortuary Storm weather effect, though we decided not to actually count it since he was just getting a feel for the character and sort of fast-and-loosed the equipment and spells so he could keep playing for the night).

[Greg Hurst]

Name: Garra
Race: human
Classes/levels: paladin 8

Name: Volamar
Race: tiefling
Classes/levels: magus 8
Adventure: Broken Moon
Location: Feldgrau
Catalyst: Vrood and Circle of Death
The Gory Details: Eesh, I felt really bad about this one, plus the battle took forever.

The party used Circle of Invisibility and darted through Feldgrau to assault the tower. They decided to attack the horde of undead in the town square which the promptly squashed with a fireball or two. As they approached the tower they were intercepted by Acrietia and her band of wights who were again defeated pretty quickly. During this battle at the foot of his tower, Auren sent out his crawling hands and instructed the skeleton archers to take care of any interlopers. Again, not a huge deal until Auren flew out of his tower to see who was giving his minions such a hard time. There he saw the party of 5 decimating his undead creations. He opened with an eyebite that sent the wizard fleeing, the next round the inquisitor followed suit. His cloudkill seemed to have no effect on the remaining 3 party members who were began flying up the tower to intercept him. That was when he dropped a circle of death and the battle ground to a halt. The paladin dropped at the top of the tower, the magus's body floated in mid-air, motionless. The cleric of Pharasma seemed to be the only one unphased. She spent the next few moments sparring with the necromancer until finally the wizard and inquistor returned to discover nearly half their party slain.

The battle took on a bit of a grind as the party did not seem to have any effective resources left to battle the still flying, stoneskinned necromancer who himself had used all of his offensive spells. Further, he had raised their fallen comrades as zombies to replace his crawling hands. Finally the wizard summoned a hound archon which lept from the tower and manged to grapple Auren mid-air. At this point Auren sunk to the ground under the weight of the creature and was slain by the living party members.

[Wyrd_Wik]

Name: Roga
Adventure: Wake of the Watcher
Catalyst: Gug

So after exploring the skum tunnels the party got batted around pretty good by the gug. Dropped two players to unconcious before outright killing the cleric. Only the gunslinger left and down to his last shots on the pepperbox. Two hits and then explodes his gun on the third shot (misfired previous round). Good thing those two other shots finished off the gug.

[Dormkirk]

Name: Justin / Everyone / TPK / But mostly Justin
Race: Asimar
Classes/levels: Paladin lvl 3
Adventure: Haunting of Harrowstone
Location: Harrowstone Prison
Catalyst: The Lopper
The Gory Details: I killed Justin that morning, so he rerolled a paladin with arctypes to fight ghosts, which had me worried that he would breeze through this encounter for the party...I was displeased.

Party enters the room, and looks down the steel grate covered pit to see a man curled up on the floor (The Lopper) Justin opens the grate and jumps down 20 feet....I was so happy.

He takes a ton of fall damage (rolled super high) and lands prone. The lopper stands up and looks to him, grinning wickedly as he levitates up to the room were the party stands....with out their anti ghost tank.

The party just totally freaks out, I start using acrobatics to move around the party and apply the bleed debuffs (I never missed a hit) so I was healing insane hp, the party did a bad job searching the place and had no ghost touch weapons. The cleric casts magic stone, and the party burns all the haunt siphons. I crit the cleric and dropped him, he won't ever cheat or meta game so he didn't tell anyone they could pick up his magic stones.

I slaughtered the party.
Justin eight rounds later, finally uses a Javelin with a rope tied to it to climb back up, I basickly let him have the climb check for free at DC 20 cuz' it was eight rounds later and the party was about to give up. The paladin finally returns, to drop smite evil on The Lopper, and rolling really high on damage....and provoking full threat. So I'm sitting at full hp, they did over 90 damage to me but I healed all of it. I kicked Justin's paladin down real hard, and he knew it was a TPK, righteous paladin told the party to flee.

As the last two party members leave the room, I finally did enough damage to grab his paladin by the throat, lift him into the air, and cut off his head with witnesses. Then I persued the party with ghostly levitatey stuff up the shaft to the first floor, killing another party member IN the crawl space. Killed two more people on the way out and two people escaped.

The best encounter I've ever seen. Although in the very first encounter with peasants in the grave yard, two people challenged the villager / lvl3 warrior to a fist fight, and I beat both of them bellow 0 with his unarmed strike feet. They were a Barbarian and a fighter level one, I loved this book.

[Glendwyr]

My party is beginning to get a little discouraged...

Name: Sameon Geistenfaust
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Paladin 6
Adventure: Trial of the Beast
Location: Lightning Tower
Catalyst: Guardian of the Tower

The Gory Details:

Spoiler:

The party fighter having spied through the front door with his gloves of reconnaissance, the party, freshly stocked on characters, buffed up a bit and then went inside. The guardian very helpfully rolled a 1 for initiative, and was so far last in order it's not even funny.

While the replacement wizard, bard, and archer elected to stay outside and attack the golem at range, the oracle, paladin, and fighter who had survived the fiasco with the erinyes pushed inside to fight the golem up close. Unfortunately for them, the party struggled somewhat to actually get past the guardian's AC, a lot of them having rolled really, really poorly, and when the golem's turn came up, he had his choice of targets.

Sensitive to the players' feelings, I decided to roll randomly to see who the golem would attack with each of its four attacks. Unfortunately, Sam's number came up three times, and all three were hits, with one a crit. When the dust cleared from the first round, the paladin was down to just north of -Con.

While Sam was still recoverable at this point, the oracle opted not to channel energy, since the bard was in a position to cast cure light and then walk up and save him. The bard, for her part, elected to try a glitterdust instead, reasoning that she could always stabilize Sam later, and the oracle could always channel anyway.

Unfortunately, the guardian made its Will save against the glitterdust, and on its turn it dropped the oracle to -2. Worse, with only the fighter still left standing inside the room, it moved to attack the archer, thereby blocking the door.

At this point, the party pinned its hopes on dropping the beast before Sam died, but they came just shy; the golem still had 2 hp left when Sam bled out.

[MurphysParadox]

Name: Who has time to remember names?
Race: Halfling, Elf, Human, Dwarf
Classes/levels: Swashbuckler, Inquisitor, Barbarian, Monk; all level 13
Adventure: Shadows over Gallowspire
Location: Banshee's Tower (D1)
Catalyst: Banshee

The Gory Details:

The party had just reached Renchurch and decided to clear out surrounding buildings before striking at the Cathedral. The Monk and the Barbarian were climbing the stairs to the tower's second story walkway when she reached out of the wall to caress the Barbarian's cheek. The terror effect drove the Barbarian into a panic. Dropping his greatsword, he ran out of the building and southeast. He was then shot by the sniping barbed devil in the belltower, so he turned and jumped through the destroyed enclosing wall, falling down the rocky hillside. This removed him for the duration of the fight.

The suggestion of a ghost of unknown concept, as no one who would be able to identify it had seen it, drove the Swashbuckler and Inquisitor to climb the iron ladder and get onto the top of the cage which was lashed to the Witchgate. They believed that standing upon such a barred construction would provide a solution against the Banshee's ability to strike them from behind the wall. The Swashbuckler was able to reach the top of the ladder, while the Inquisitor just started up it. The Monk also felt the soul-wrenching burn of the creature's touch, so he turned and jumped across to the cage in a stunning display of monk-like grace, though the enjoyment of such a performance would be (literally) short lived.

The Banshee took this turn to demonstrate her great hatred of the living. She took a single step through the wall and let loose with a powerful wail, as is her undead birthright. While it was unable to affect the Inquisitor and left the Swashbuckler ill to his stomach, the Monk fared far worse. His lifeless corpse fell from the top of the iron cell to crunch sickeningly into the dirt below.

The Inquisitor and Swashbuckler moved to the top of the cage and prepared for a fight. The Banshee charged in and struck a solid backhand through the cheek of the Inquisitor. The Swashbuckler attempted to strike her as she drew close but was able to do only cursory damage with his blade; ghosts are just not his forte. The Inquisitor offered his life to guard the Swashbucker's escape, so the nimble swordsman went to grab the Raven's Head Mace from the Inquisitor's belt before jumping down to recover the Monk's bag of holding and literally flying out with his winged boots.

Unfortunately, the momentary shift in his attention attracted a quick blow from the Banshee. The damage was painful but the combination of her mind-crushing terror and the continued effects of her scream drove the Swashbuckler into a crushing terror and he lept from the cage, taking another strike as he went.

The Inquisitor decided that he had no other choice, so he drew back his bow and struck at her with shot after shot. She struck him each time he drew and, in the end, he could not draw enough times. His lifeless corpse toppled backwards over the edge of the cage and it, too, landed with what can be assumed to be a messy crunch, if anyone was in their right mind to hear it. At this point, it was little effort for the Banshee to finish off the Swashbuckler as he cowered in terror.

The Barbarian, meanwhile, came to his senses and scrambled up the hill side to return to his party's aid. Unfortunately, he found all of them dead, so he made a dash to recover his most prized of possessions - his greatsword. Doubly unfortunately, he was once again terrified but was not able to escape before falling to her spirit-melting touch.

This was an adventure-ending Total Party Kill. I was relieved when the players lost their Wizard, thinking they wouldn't be able to teleport into this situation. Unfortunately, the desire to secure one's surroundings was too strong and they were surprised by what they found.

Best of luck to other parties; we all hope you can succeed where ACME Adventuring Company failed.

[NobodysHome]

The saddest, most hilarious aspect of the TPK is how dependent it was on sheer party greed: The monk died fair up. As I read it, the swashbuckler intentionally took an attack of opportunity to go after the now-fallen-monk's loot. The inquisitor sacrificed his life in vain, since the swashbuckler was greedy. Then the barbarian, seeing all three of his party members dead, went in anyway to try to recover his loot.

I love it! An excellent learning exercise for all. "If you're all dead, there's no one left to spend the loot!"

(I have no idea about player dynamics -- could just be that the barbarian's player thought, "Ah, well, everyone else is dead. Might as well end it in a spectacular fashion," but it does make for a great read.)

[Dragonshade]

Well, got two more for the pile.

Name: Londo Quickblade
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Samurai 3, Wizard 4
Adventure: Broken Moon
Location: Feldgrau
Catalyst: Auren Vrood and his extra special Circle of Death magic trick

Name: Duncan Cade
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Magus 7
Adventure: Broken Moon
Location: Feldgrau
Catalyst: Auren Vrood and his extra special Circle of Death magic trick

Not really much to share on the gory details. Just classic "let's charge this bad guy head on oh good lord ow the pain ow" tactics.

[MurphysParadox]

Reply to NobodysHome:

NobodysHome wrote:

The saddest, most hilarious aspect of the TPK is how dependent it was on sheer party greed: The monk died fair up. As I read it, the swashbuckler intentionally took an attack of opportunity to go after the now-fallen-monk's loot. The inquisitor sacrificed his life in vain, since the swashbuckler was greedy. Then the barbarian, seeing all three of his party members dead, went in anyway to try to recover his loot.

I love it! An excellent learning exercise for all. "If you're all dead, there's no one left to spend the loot!"

(I have no idea about player dynamics -- could just be that the barbarian's player thought, "Ah, well, everyone else is dead. Might as well end it in a spectacular fashion," but it does make for a great read.)

Not quite. The Swashbuckler took an AOO to try and grab the Raven's Head mace from the doomed Inquisitor, then would have taken a second AOO to get down to the Monk and recover the party's common gear and money so they'd have half a chance to fight again another day. So it was meant to be a means of recovering the party funds and the most important item they had (can't let the mace get into the hands of the bad guys!)

The Barbarian Player knew the party was done and so he decided the Barbarian would never walk away from his +4 Adamantine Greatsword (and best friend) so he decided to run in and try to recover his weapon and die fighting. He didn't do either, heh.

[Lilliana Star]

Name: Deandrina
Race/Class/Level: Changeling Oracle 2
Adventure: The Haunting of Harrowstone
Catalyst: Overconfidence

Spoiler:

The adventurers entered the furnace room and were exploring when Old Ember Maw roared to life, lashing its fiery tongue out at the paladin and hitting him. The rogue and wizard, knowing that they could not hurt the haunt, left the room. Ember Maw attacked the oracle the next round, bringing her to three hit points, for she had already sustained mild injuries from a previous fight. Deandrina and the paladin left the room, but after a short while, Deandrina re-entered the room, thinking that she could channel positive energy to defeat the haunt. She rolled low, and Old Ember Maw attacked her on his turn the following round. Since she had not healed and Ember Maw rolled 15 points of damage, the oracle died a terrible, fiery death.

Fortunately, as the surviving heroes were on their way back to Ravengro, intending to bury their fallen friend, they encountered a cleric of Sarenrae. The cleric, realizing that the adventurers were trying to explore Harrowstone and rid it of all evil, offered to raise the oracle and pay for the spell components, saying that they could pay her back later once they had enough gold. Since then, the PCs have returned to Harrowstone, ready to explore it some more.

[Level 1 Commoner]

It still played out rather well for your group, but doesn't Embermaw have a reset timer of 24 hours? Otherwise my group would have lost at least 2 people in Harrowstone.

[Keep Calm and Carrion]

MurphysParadox wrote:

Classes/levels: Swashbuckler, Inquisitor, Barbarian, Monk; all level 13

Adventure: Shadows over Gallowspire

Dang, Murphy! That’s a long run through an AP, only to hit a TPK with the goalposts in sight. Glad your players took it well.

I have to say, though, with that party composition I imagine Lucimar’s guerilla tactics would have chewed them to pieces anyway. Please tell me the Inquisitor had Restoration as one of his spells known.

[Blackbot]

Level 1 Commoner wrote:

It still played out rather well for your group, but doesn't Embermaw have a reset timer of 24 hours? Otherwise my group would have lost at least 2 people in Harrowstone.

I think the reset timer only comes into play if they destroyed the haunt. It's more or less a "respawn timer". They did not destroy him, the only fled --> haunt is still active --> FIERY DEATH!

[Level 1 Commoner]

You're right. My memory failed me. It's a persistent haunt and my group got only hit once, because they ran away and never came back to the furnace room after the Ranger lost his beard and his self-confidence with the first blast.

[mikeawmids]

Name: Van Hellsqueak
Race: Halfling
Classes/levels: Level 7 Fighter
Adventure: Broken Moon
Location: Feldgrau
Catalyst: Auren Vrood casting Circle of Death

Name: Sister Dolores
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Level 7 Cleric (Pharasma)
Adventure: Broken Moon
Location: Feldgrau
Catalyst: Auren Vrood casting Circle of Death

The cleric's player has been absent for several weeks, so the guy running the dwarven druid was making rolls for her character. He was not familiar enough with her character sheet to know that Phasman clerics have special abilities to prevent death attacks within a certain radius, so none of these abilities were active when Vrood CoD'ed us.

[Stewart Perkins]

Had a death finally after MANY close calls.

Name: Sergei Steeljaw
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Level 9 fighter
Adventure: wake of the watcher
Location: undidmede house
Catalyst: Albor Voltiaro

Spoiler:

they engaged the cleric! tried to bluff him and failed. He cast blade barrier, which they dispelled. Sergei charged him and he cast harm. Sergei didn't take it so well.

Funny story about Vrood

Spoiler:

in my game due to cohorts and what not he knew he was outnumbered so he cast invisibility and fly before combat. The party entered and ate the circle of death (wasting a few cohorts). Realizing their opponent was invisible, the party wizard used his bonded item to cast see invisibility and located Vrood. The cleric the. Cast dispel magic naming fly. (Side note the cleric has been rocking that dispel, she dispelled the succumbs trap in TotB and then this fly as well as the blade barrier in aforementioned death). So Sergei rushed to the area of Vrood's fall and used the dust of appearance they found earlier in the adventure. Turns out its dust of sneezing and coughing the cursed item. Both Sergei and Vrood fail their save and eat 14 com damage. Sergei barely survives while Vrood was built on the loser track of super villains with a massive 10 con and dies. Hilariously anticlimactic.

[Pan]

Stewart Perkins wrote:

Had a death finally after MANY close calls.

Name: Sergei Steeljaw
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Level 9 fighter
Adventure: wake of the watcher
Location: undidmede house
Catalyst: Albor Voltiaro

** spoiler omitted **

Funny story about Vrood ** spoiler omitted **

Whoa, that item does 14 con damage on a failed save?

Edit: looked it up that is fricken nasty.

[Stewart Perkins]

Pan wrote:

Stewart Perkins wrote:

Had a death finally after MANY close calls.

Name: Sergei Steeljaw
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Level 9 fighter
Adventure: wake of the watcher
Location: undidmede house
Catalyst: Albor Voltiaro

** spoiler omitted **

Funny story about Vrood ** spoiler omitted **

Whoa, that item does 14 con damage on a failed save?

Edit: looked it up that is fricken nasty.

Technically it can do more.

[Turin the Mad]

dust of disappearance is precisely why cursed items cannot be deliberately crafted. That and scarabs of death.

[Vition]

Name: Telven
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Level 12 Rogue
Adventure: Ashes at Dawn
Location: The Abbey of Sante-Lymirin
Catalyst: Witchfires

Telven scouted the room looking for anything of value, unfortunately he rolled poorly on his stealth check and was heard. 28d6 fire damage later, fiery-burny death occurs.

[Vition]

Name: Crothu
Race: Half-Orc
Classes/levels: Level 12 Magus
Adventure: Ashes at Dawn
Location: The Abbey of Sante-Lymirin
Catalyst: Invisible Stalkers

Spoiler:

Crothu was the only one who had any interest in the skeleton in the corner. A number of invisible fists/claws whatever pummeled him during the surprise round and the next. He went unconscious, the rest of the party joined in, including healing him back to awake, one of the stalkers continued pounding him, causing enough damage on it's next attacks to kill Crothu.

[Tybid]

Name: Anaisia
Race: Tiefling
Classes/levels: Level 10 Hedge Witch
Adventure: Wake of the Watcher
Location: The Skum Tunnels
Catalyst: Oogy the Prophet

too deadly:

While exploring the skum tunnels beneath Encarthan Bay the group encountered the crazy (and entirely too knowledgable) Oogy, prophet of the dark goat of the woods. After a lively conversation Oogy decided that he wanted to experience death and attacked the group.

The sound of his star shriek brought the mi-go from the rooms to the south... and a free for all combat that was somewhat more deadly than I had imagined ensued. At least one other player was forced to use his 'cards' to avoid death when getting surrounded and mauled by mi-go.

In the middle of the fight Oogy chose to cast scorching ray and randomly chose his targets for each ray based on a d6. The witch got hit twice. The second burned a whole through her chest. Having used her cards in a fight with the skum outside the dome she was no more.

Anaisia's player chose to create a dhampir cleric / rogue and was found being experimented on by the mi-go in one of the southern rooms.

I'm just glad that I didn't have the gug hear the combat and jump in as well.

[Keep Calm and Carrion]

Name: Kuldor Force-Flinger
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Wizard 8 (Evoker)
Adventure: Broken Moon
Location: Feldgrau Armory

Catalyst: Planned an Ambush, Didn’t Plan On Acrietia

Details:

My players approached the Feldgrau armory cautiously. Scouting ahead, their inquisitor spotted the four ordinary wights lurking inside. He didn’t spot Acrietia.

The rest of the party moved into spell-lobbing positions while the ranger and inquisitor took up positions by the door. But when they opened it, Acrietia dashed out, catching most of the party by surprise and beating the others on initiative. On the surprise round, she darted past the front liners and into the casters’ midst. At the top of the first round she unloaded on the party’s flatfooted wizard, knocking him unconscious with three or four negative levels.

The party’s witch touched the wizard with a healing hex, reviving him, then stepped away from Acrietia. The wizard, rather a glass cannon, decided to fire a handful of magic missiles at the dread wight. He did very little damage, not even penetrating her temporary hit points, but it was the first damage she took in the fight. She stepped to remain in range of the other casters, then kicked him until he stopped moving, bestowing two more negative levels and shattering his vertebrae with a wet crunch.

The other PCs rallied and killed her with a few full attacks, and the group elected to spend a hard-earned harrow card/hero point to make the wizard’s death only a knockout.

[Ben the Red]

Name: Haver Stargazer
Race: Elf
Class: Oracle 8
Adventure: Broken Moon
Location: Feldgrau
Catalyst: Lycanthropy and Neutrality

Gory Details:

The whole group new they were infected with Lycanthropy, only some tried to cure themselves. Haver was not one of them. During one of the battles with cultists in Feldgrau, Haver was injured and failed his Will Save to resist the wolf. He transformed into a werewolf and killed the man in front of him (WW curate). He then proceed to succeed at his Will Save to regain control of his body (probably not RAW) and was given the choice to return to elf form or embrace the power of the werewolf and alignment shift from N to CE. He choose power and proceed to attack the rest of the party. The rest of the party had no choice, but to kill him.

Name: Akuum Nightwind
Race: Sylph
Class: Swordsage 9
Adventure: Wake of the Watcher
Location: Undiomede House
Catalyst: A Marsh Giant and Confusion

Gory Details:

The Marsh Giant guarding the entrance to Undiomede House cast confusion, and three members of the group succumbed (the fighter, sorcerer, and Akuum). There was a lot of babbling, a lot of hurting themselves in confusion, and eventually after the Marsh Giant was killed (mostly by chance) Akuum and the Fighter started stabbing each other. Akuum actually succeed in killing the Fighter (who had taken some hits from the giant and sorcerer), but the Cleric used Breath of Life to bring him back. The Fighter then proceed to critically hit Akuum, twice in a row, in the last round of confusion. Unfortunately, the Cleric did not do enough healing to prevent those blows from killing Akuum. The Cleric had only prepared one Breath of Life.

Akuum has been resurrected (for the second time) and probably fears his allies more than his enemies at this point.

[Brofessor X]

Name: Arynn Vrood
Race: Human
Class: Necromancer
Adventure: Broken Moon
Location: Feldgrau
Catalyst: Chain of Perdition

The Gory Details

Spoiler:

While flying and using Greater Invisibility, Vrood gave away his position to the flying party cleric with a failed ray, and got himself caught with a Chain of Perdition. He was then dragged down into the area of his CLoudkill spell that he opened combat with and was held there while he was blinded (negating his eyebite spell) and slowly failed Fort save after fort save and suffered a lethal amount of Constitution damage, ending his life. While this happened the party of heroes sat around and laughed at him even after his dying moments. The GM told us that this encounter was supposed to be much more scary and climatic in his head.

[Andrea1]

Hoisted by his own petard.

[Big Joe]

Name: Theodrus
Race: Human
Class: Cleric 2/Cavalier (Order of the Cockatrice) 3/Low Templar 2
Adventure: Trial of the Beast
Location: Bridge between the Gatehouse and the Manse at Schloss Caromarc
Catalyst: A huge Air Elemental trap

The Gory Details

:

Theodrus along with the rest of the party triggered the huge Air Elemental trap when they battered down the doors of the Manse after defeating the Flesh Golem Hound. The air elemental predictably turned into a whirlwind and began picking up the PC's. The first PC made his reflex saves and was able to leap free to safety. Theodrus was not as lucky as his compatriot however and failed his saving throws both to avoid damage from the debris field and to get free of the whirlwind. The next turn the Air Elemental got it expelled him over the edge of the bridge. Now being a kind and considerate GM I gave the player a chance to catch the edge of the bridge as he went over which he missed. The character then proceeded to fall the 200 feet to the water below and make a graceful swan dive into the river negating some of the damage from the fall. He then proceeded to fail his swim checks to get out of the fast moving river and plummeted over the next waterfall. Falling an additional 150 feet to the river below. This resulted in him dying a most soggy death.

The player did use a Harrow Card to cheat death and thus never truly died. I allow my players to use an earned Harrow Card to cheat death just like spending two Hero Points. This is the only ability the cards have besides what they can do via the players guide.

[Rynjin]

A little belated, but here we are.

Name: Cassiel Cogito
Race: Elf
Class: Wizard 1
Adventure: Haunting of Harrowstone
Location: 2nd Floor of Harrowstone
Catalyst: The Piper of Illmarsh

The Gory Details:

Our intrepid crew of adventurers decided to check out Harrowstone on about...Day 4 of their stay in Ravengro. The party Barbarian easily smashed the wimpy floating scythe guarding the side/balcony door, and the just as wimpy door itself.

They roll up into Harrowstone feeling mighty confident. As such, their first encounter with a Haunt was the Piper and a number of skeletons. The poor Wizard rolls low on his Will save, and is caught by the Piper's paralyzing powers. A skeleton creeps closer.

He tries to break free of the nightmare, but is sadly unable.

The skeleton creeps ever closer, and slashes him with its claws.

Our Zen Archer takes a swing at the skeleton, but sadly misses.

The skeleton strangles poor Cassiel in a coup de grace, ending his adventure before it had even truly begun.

Name: Shoukichi Heisei
Race: Kitsune
Class: Bard 2
Adventure: Haunting of Harrowstone
Location: Induction Chamber/Foyer
Catalyst: Father Charlatan

The Gory Details:

Poor old Shoukichi touched the Father's journal, and thus was marked for b~!*%+!$.

The group explored a good bit of Harrowstone after Cassiel's death, and Shoukichi avoided danger for a good while, until they entered the Induction Chamber. Cold Spot kicked in, and Shoukcihi was out like a light. I let them level after the Piper encounter, since it seemed like a good time, but it sadly was not enough to save Shoukichi from a truly astounding streak of bad rolls. Of at least 15 Will saves made (the encounter was prolonged by the party healing him), he only ever managed to pass one of them. For the rest, he never hit above a 6 on the die.

Even with a little friendly fudging (allowing Channeled Energy and Cure Light Wounds spells to heal Shoukichi also harm Father Charlatan), the Father sadly managed to outlast poor Shoukichi, retaining 1 hit point at the time Shoukichi expired, still thinking he had died and re-awoken months later.

But, on the bright side, one of Shoukichi's GOOD rolls was his Disguise roll. He went to his grave with none of his companions ever knowing he was other than human.

I am both excited and apprehensive about how they will fare against the Lopper and Splatterman. The Piper and Charlatan are effectively defunct, requiring minimal effort for the group to destroy now that they know they're there, but so far the Haunts of Harrowstone are 2 for 2 on player lives taken, and they haven't even encountered the most dangerous yet...