About TPK in pathfinder


Advice


Hi there! How's going?
I'm Japanese pathfinder player/gamemerster.

I found that some of this game's scenario says that TPK (total party kill) is allowed in some occasion and player should make his/her new character.

However, it is not common for us to create TPK because of some problem. In Japan, it is said that character should not be died and GM should avoid character's death.

Based on these, In Japan, TPK is clearly avoided. Should TPK occur, GM simply declears that it was "yumeochi" (lit. means "It was just a dream!") and so on.

We don't experience TPK at all. Because of this, I can't understand when/how GM should do TPK.

1) Is it common for this game to be TPK?
2) If Yes, what should I do to deal with TPK?
(For example, I should use weaker monsters or simply pass powerful magic items)

Thanks a lot!


1) It's not common in most games, but it does happen. And I don't see that as a bad thing.

The risk of TPK is part of what keeps the game interesting, even in a world where resurrection is usually readily available. It creates more excitement when the stakes are high, in my experience - and I cannot count the amount of times we have been coming dangerously close to a TPK in our current game, though we usually manage to pull through somehow. That's what heroic adventure is all about.

I would find a game where the GM explicitly prevents TPK, to the point of retconning when it does happen, somewhat boring. It's not fun to just automatically win.

TPK can be annoying because they break up the campaign, but it also gives everyone a chance for a fresh start. What happens after a TPK is up to the GM - perhaps its time to go for a new adventure path, or perhaps - if everyone still like the current one - the GM can find a way for a new party of adventurers to stumble upon the start of the next chapter, so he hasn't wasted the time he spent preparing for it all.

2) Well, I personally wouldn't go out of my way to prevent TPKs before it turned out to be an issue, though it is of course advisable to throw appropriate challenges at the party, and not give them something blatantly unfair. If running a published adventure, also keep an eye on the "boss" encounters and consider whether they may be too powerful for your group (I had to nerf one of the bosses in Rise of the Runelords, for example, who is notorious for being a TPK-machine).


When I've played with players who got super turned off by TPKs, I would basically have them battle their way out of the afterlife, or sometimes be reborn into the service of a god. What is especially interesting is having good players risen by an evil god. They have to choose between their life and their principles.

Lead to some pretty cool adventures.


TPK is not common.
It should only happen if the party does a big or a lot of mistakes. If these mistakes are not so obvious, some warning by the GM (via NPCs or whatever) are fair.

If you find an encounter is unbalanced and might kill the whole party without their fault, you can always improvise: reduce monsters' hitpoints, send some help, ....


yuki_sc wrote:
However, it is not common for us to create TPK because of some problem. In Japan, it is said that character should not be died and GM should avoid character's death.

I totally agree with this statement, as a GM I try to tell a story, I usually plan the final comfrontation since the begining and usually try to lead the players to additional personal motivations on the PC's (revenge, sense of honor, a debt) to try to stop the main villian.

The death of a PC is not a desirable situation for me but if it occours it can be explained on the continuity of the story if someone else takes his place, if the entire party is killed its a bit more defficult to explain why a totally new party is trying to take their place, and the personal motivation are just lost, it would see as a different story.


Rasief wrote:
yuki_sc wrote:
However, it is not common for us to create TPK because of some problem. In Japan, it is said that character should not be died and GM should avoid character's death.

I totally agree with this statement, as a GM I try to tell a story, I usually plan the final comfrontation since the begining and usually try to lead the players to additional personal motivations on the PC's (revenge, sense of honor, a debt) to try to stop the main villian.

The death of a PC is not a desirable situation for me but if it occours it can be explained on the continuity of the story if someone else takes his place, if the entire party is killed its a bit more defficult to explain why a totally new party is trying to take their place, and the personal motivation are just lost, it would see as a different story.

In general, if I ended up in a TPK situation, I would go with the same adventure I would just start the new characters at the beginning. Assuming you allow them to reroll same level characters.


I have always regarded it as the DM's job to keep the PCs alive while convincing the players he is out to kill their PCs.

TPKs can happen, but should never be planned for. If you end up in a TPK situation, think of a way out of it - like having the PCs wake up tied to the alter...

Grand Lodge

If you are not playing in an Organized Play game like Pathfinder Society, it is your game. Play the way you, and your players, want to play.


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TPK frequency and attitude towards it varies by campaign. IMO it should never be a goal of the DM to get a party wipe, and, personally, I will fudge a bit in their favor if they look like they're going to get wiped for no fault of their own (the dice aren't with them that day, or whatever).

But if it happens, well, it sometimes happens. I do agree it should be rare. And it doesn't have to be the end of the world - even for those characters. It doesn't have to be "it was all a dream" to get them back, either.

Friendly NPCs (assuming the party has friends) could have their bodies recovered and revived. . .somehow (the means of doing so is always an in-campaign-context kind of thing). Smart PCs will even make arrangements to insure they get restored to life, when they have the ability to do so.

Here, at least, often if the players get the idea that there will never be a TPK, that if push comes to shove the DM will bail them out, two things can happen

1) the game loses much of it's challenge. I mean, what if everyone who competed in Sasuke got to the top of Mt. Midoriyama? It is the possibility of failure that makes success an achievement worth remembering.

2) they can start getting too casual about things. They start taking greater risks knowing that whatever happens, they'll be fine.

(Note: in general I don't believe in fudging die rolls, things like that. But 1) it's possible to not have the beasties do the best thing all the time and 2) there are exceptional occasions where a bit of a break is warranted. Not ongoing - not for the entire rest of a combat; that combat should still have a chance to go against the party and result in a TPK - but a bit of extra, well, "divine fortune" if the party is facing an undeserved fate. Still, like i said, if a party wipe happens anyhow, well, it happens - and IMO a DM is robbing the party of any sense of achievement if the DM will bail them out *any* time they might fall).


yuki_sc wrote:
Should TPK occur, GM simply declears that it was "yumeochi" (lit. means "It was just a dream!") and so on.

Barring foreshadowing, this would irritate me more than anything, to be honest. As others have already said in earlier in the thread, there are a number of ways to make the deaths matter to the story without making them be the end of the characters forever.

One that wasn't mentioned that I'm a fan of is having a "B" team of heroes hear about the death of the main party and go on a quest to recover their bodies for resurrection because the main heroes "are the only ones who can stop the bad guys"/"saved the B Team's puppy from heartworm"/"owe the B Team's boss some money"/etc. The players then run these characters for a session as they recover their old characters and you now have both a potential new plot hook and some great candidates for cohorts if the PCs end up taking Leadership.


1) The game system doesn't have any built-in safety measures to explicitly prevent TPK. This is left to the GM.

2) The main tool you have to ensure the challenge fits the party is the Challenge Rating and Average Party Level system. It isn't perfect though, so you should take care when introducing new monsters. Check that their damage output can be handled by the characters and that the party has the necessary tools to defeat it (for example the damage reduction of lycanthropes can be unexpectedly hard to counter at lower levels).

My advice would be to start out with weaker enemies and experiment with raising the difficulty until you and your group find a level you are comfortable with.

You should also be aware of the limitation called 'Action Economy' here on the boards. Often a single big opponent can be easier to defeat than a few semi-big ones. This is important because you might think that if the party took down a single opponent of APL+2 in a single round, they could take 2 or 3 at the same time. And then you risk TPK.

The most important thing is that you discuss this with the group and reach a common understanding.

Shadow Lodge

Speaking as a player, a TPK is generally a bad thing, and should be avoided, but once it happens, it happens. You could have players enslaved or something to avoid it, just be wary with what the baddies do.

I cannot comment much with my limited experience as a PFS GM, but I will say that character death happens. If the party is high-enough level, however, make sure that at least one gets away, so that he can somehow get the others raised.


TPK should happen. It's the stories that players remember the most and brag about.

What should happen is the TPK should be a fair, very hard, memorable, struggle that the players still had a chance for a last minute win.

What should NOT happen is a PK where the player dies from no fault of their own but due to a bad die roll or two.

To help prevent TPK, you should always try and leave a escape path open for the players. It should be up to them if they want to risk a TPK or not. If they want to stay and fight it out, even when the fight is going badly for them, then they need to expect a TPK. You could even make it part of the story or plot hook if this fight is that important to the characters.


As noted TPKs are rare and should not be planned, but in certain situations they are a very real possibility. They are most common in the concluding battle of an adventure, when the power level of the hostile NPC(s) are equal or even greater than that of the usually battle-weary party.

As a GM I'm not fond of a TPK. It leaves me wanting more from the campaign, regardless of how my players respond. I don't like hand-waving the outcome, but If the group is willing I like to work out some way to correct the incident in-game. Maybe the party managed to seal away the big bad for a few years, delay it until a new crop of PC heroes follows in their predecessor's footsteps to halt the threat for good. Perhaps the overwhelming threat does not kill the party, but holds them to forward it own objectives. Perhaps one or more members of the group manage to hold on long enough to deliver a final blow to the overwhelming threat.

Ultimately, we're playing a game where the goal is to tell a story. Not all stories have a happy ending, and heroes often die. That being said, any story needs to come to a satisfactory conclusion. If the dice do not produce such an ending, work with your group to create one despite the setback of a TPK.


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Matt2VK wrote:

TPK should happen. It's the stories that players remember the most and brag about.

What should happen is the TPK should be a fair, very hard, memorable, struggle that the players still had a chance for a last minute win.

What should NOT happen is a PK where the player dies from no fault of their own but due to a bad die roll or two.

To help prevent TPK, you should always try and leave a escape path open for the players. It should be up to them if they want to risk a TPK or not. If they want to stay and fight it out, even when the fight is going badly for them, then they need to expect a TPK. You could even make it part of the story or plot hook if this fight is that important to the characters.

If the party can't lose without gross stupidity adults should be incapable of, why even bother with dice? Why not just say they win every fight unless they were really, really stupid?

If the party can't suffer a TPK on any given day, there is no point in rolling dice. Just say they win and move on.

I don't believe NPCs should engage the party, in general, unless they believe they can win.


Shame on you GM if you plan a TPK.


I have never played in a game where the whole party died, although on a couple of occasions that was only because the GM had pity on us.

For an ongoing campaign, I'm generally against having lots of characters dying; it makes the story less interesting, in my opinion.

Sczarni

I try to TPK as an ending to campaigns. They will be sang about for ages to come!


Corlindale wrote:


2) Well, I personally wouldn't go out of my way to prevent TPKs before it turned out to be an issue, though it is of course advisable to throw appropriate challenges at the party, and not give them something blatantly unfair. If running a published adventure, also keep an eye on the "boss" encounters and consider whether they may be too powerful for your group (I had to nerf one of the bosses in Rise of the Runelords, for example, who is notorious for being a TPK-machine).

Just curious, which boss was it? I had to nerf up Chapter 4's end boss, even with some pretty clever party tactics (maybe that's WHY I nerfed him). Boy, Disintegrate should REALLY have ended that battle :)

@yuki_sc I don't like to kill my players normally. I DO like to send them to the Deck of Many Things with only the bad cards...just kidding.

I storytell them out of it usually or maybe the BBEG ends up missing his concentration check or something like that.


@Pendin Fust

It was the end boss of chapter II. Judging from the RotR subforum many people have had major trouble with it. I nerfed its AC severely, but it was still a close thing.

Back on-topic:

While I don't recall ever having fudged rolls to avoid a TPK, I have sometimes resorted to playing enemies a little less intelligently than I otherwise would, to give my players a better chance. I especially do this if I somehow feel it was my fault for bringing them into that situation, because I had designed an encounter badly or underestimated the powers of some monster I sprung at them.


We need a good tpk when the pc's reach level 14ish. The combat takes too long. I hope for an epic battle.


To Yuki, our original poster, as you can see from the above there is more tolerance for TPK among English speaking players than there may be among Japanese. I've only read the rules for one Japanese TTRPG and from what I could see it was well-nigh impossible to kill off a player character let alone an entire party. Of course this was a lighthearted TTRPG inspired by silly romantic comedies, so player character death could be inappropriate in that context.

You may want to ask your players if they'd be interested in a gritty "American style" RPG where TPK is a very real possibility. If you don't find any takers, you can always fall back on the old "yumeochi" trick.


I avoid character death, usually with a little fudge here and there, but I have dealt three tpk's. One was from boredom during a one-off, but the other two were from players making bad choices. One from players not using magic items I had intentionally put in their hands and the other from players attacking multiple demons who were not previously hostile towards them.

For the game to remain interesting and fun, tpk needs to remain a possibility.


One of the best ways to avoid a TPK might be to make it clear that you are willing to have a TPK. If the players don't think that you will kill of all the PCs and end the campaign they might refuse to run away or back down from a fight when it would be smart to do so. If you tell the players that they can't defeat a certain foe yet they're likely to take it as a challenge and then test your willpower as the DM to see if you will really follow through and kill them.

Another way to help avoid unwanted TPKs is to use the Hero Point system found in the Advanced Player's Guide and on the PRD. This system gives PCs points they can spend to adjust critical die rolls or even avoid death. Players who think that dying is part of the fun can spend their points on doing flashy, heroic things. Those who like to keep their characters alive can save their points to rescue their PC from what seems like certain death.

As long as 1 or 2 PCs survive somehow they can continue the adventure. Sometimes they might find a way to bring back their fallen friends. Others they might seek out powerful new companions to help them seek the one thing many characters like even better than gold - revenge!


ossian666 wrote:
I try to TPK as an ending to campaigns. They will be sang about for ages to come!

Our current DM is in the process of doing that(although he may not be successful). We are a group of 4 18th level chars + a Great Wyrm gold dragon, and we are up against 7 other Great Wyrm dragons of various colors.

For this fight we get vary little prep time, its just like hey look there be dragons ...(2 rounds).. combat happens, to be fair though we have absolutly destroyed all his other encounters without to much trouble . Our last encounter was 2 CR20+ dragons and an awakened Dire Bear with levels in Barbarian (ECR 19).

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