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In the first encounter, no less. The party consisted of Valeros and Kyra, as well as two custom characters; Morgan the Halfling Monk and Indy the Half-Elf Summoner.
Right outside the keep, Maruit dropped down as the PCs approached, taking the defensive action in the surprise round as she addressed the PCs. Valeros ran in and attacked, missing, while Morgan and Indy's Eidolon(A Snake) followed. This ended up cornering Maruit, who then full attacked - paralyzing Valeros on the first attack, and missing the monk twice. The monk retaliated by wacking Maruit again, but on her next found she paralyzed both the monk and the Eidolon. Valeros became unparalyzed just then, but Maruit hit him again and he got a Nat1 on his Fort save.
So... I had Maruit, a starving, freshly turned ghoul, surrounded by three helpless characters and no way to reach(or be reached by) the other two. Without any other possible action to take, I had Meruit start eating Valeros's brain, which I treated as a Coup De' Grace. He failed the save and was slain.
This opened up Indy and Kyra(Who was channeling to harm), so on the following round Maruit took a 5-foot step and attacked them, with both failing their saves and being paralyzed as well. Maruit then ate the brain of the cleric who was hurting her with the stinging energy. Both pregens were now dead.
The other two were still paralyzed, so on the following turn Maruit ate Indy's brain, killing him and dismissing his Eidolon, then, turned to Morgan and ate his too. TPK within 20 minutes of the start time.
Did I run this right? I couldn't think of any other way to run it, though another GM said you should never CDG in First Steps(He said I should have full attacked instead, but with 3 attacks against helpless targets I think that would have been just as lethal).
What we ended up doing was bumping everybody's character numbers up 1, then starting over. This time they lured her out into the open, and were able to take her down, finishing the scenario without incident.
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TPKs happen.
The encounter doesn't have to be a combat encounter. They made it so...they died. It happens.
It's unclear to me as you've described it whether the CdG actions were handled correctly, which would be as full round actions.
Also, paralyzed characters are helpless, so Maruit can move through their squares if you thought that was a more appropriate action.
Unfortunately, the intros have some pretty deadly encounters in them.
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That's amazing. You sir, are a heartless monster.
One option that provides a realistic way to softball the encounter is to make sure that Maruit has a percentage chance to revert back into thinking that she's still a person. So even if she does paralyse everyone, she needs to make a will save to fight off her encroaching undead nature before she coup de graces the heroes.
This way she could be about to bite into someone's skull, before remembering being a Pathfinder and she stops right beforehand, disgusted at the idea of what she's about to do.
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I had a near-TPK in that encounter too. I was up against what I dubbed team ranged, archer fighter, ranger, gunslinger and a sorcerer. Everyone failed perception checks and Maruit rolled really well on initiative.
Surprise round, move up to people, who were all bunched up.
First round, everyone is flat footed, sneak attacks go.
kill one person (first hit he was up and made his save, second hit killed him out right) and paralyzed another.
Gunslinger tried to shoot Maruit, misfires, sorcerer 5fted cast a spell, can't remember what it was
Second round, Maruit 5fts to the sorcerer starts the full round attack, paralyzes, decided not to continue ripping the sorcerer a new one as i was hoping they'd pull though.
Gunslinger decides that there isn't enough time to clear her weapon, fires anyway.
misfire, BOOM.
Now that the gunslinger has no weapon and all teammates are on paralyzed or dead decides that a *ahem* tactical retreat is the best idea. Maruit lets her run as she's got three fresh meals now, and who knows, the nice lady might bring back some more meals for her.
One option that provides a realistic way to softball the encounter
Softballing? pfft. Some times Desna similes upon you and grants you good rolls. Sometimes she curses them, although I've seen your rolling, she just likes to screw you over.
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One option that provides a realistic way to softball the encounterSoftballing? pfft. Some times Desna similes upon you and grants you good rolls. Sometimes she curses them, although I've seen your rolling, she just likes to screw you over.
It's best to get the softballing out of the way at tier 1.
There is no softballing at tier 10-11. There is only pain.
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TPKs happen.
The encounter doesn't have to be a combat encounter. They made it so...they died. It happens.
It's unclear to me as you've described it whether the CdG actions were handled correctly, which would be as full round actions.
Also, paralyzed characters are helpless, so Maruit can move through their squares if you thought that was a more appropriate action.
Unfortunately, the intros have some pretty deadly encounters in them.
Yes, I was CdG'ing as a full-round action.
I didn't realize that you can move through a paralyzed character's square. That's interesting, though I still don't think she would have done it(the other two character who she wasn't threatening weren't really a threat).
That's amazing. You sir, are a heartless monster.
One option that provides a realistic way to softball the encounter is to make sure that Maruit has a percentage chance to revert back into thinking that she's still a person. So even if she does paralyse everyone, she needs to make a will save to fight off her encroaching undead nature before she coup de graces the heroes.
This way she could be about to bite into someone's skull, before remembering being a Pathfinder and she stops right beforehand, disgusted at the idea of what she's about to do.
My group never identified themselves as Pathfinders, so the diplomacy option was right out. As far as Maruit knew, she dropped down to say hi and a bunch of guys started attacking her with sword and shovels.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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In which case, you taught the players a valuable lesson about what order speech and stabbing come in.
^^^This, sir, is the most valuable advice for any group you TPK with this encounter again^^^
Don't feel too bad about it; the player's didn't feel down-trodden about it, and they were cheerful when they got to try again and do it right this time ^_^
I thought you ran it well, targetting the pregens with CdGs first and then restarting the mod after the TPK. If the party attack Maurit then "Maurit’s ghoulish hunger takes hold, and
she attacks with ravenous fury", so let that be a lesson to them. :-)
However, Half-elves count as both elves and humans for the purposes of effects related to race, which is bad for being a favoured enemy but good for fighting ghouls as Indy should have been immune to the paralysis. With his eidolon paralysed it would have taken one round to dismiss it and another to summon a creature, so the outcome probably wouldn't have changed, but he could have run away.
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Sounds like they deserved it. When I played this, we spoke to Maruit and she was our little buddy, helped us fight, have us info, and entertained. It was sweet (she's sweet! lol).
You're right, whether you use a Coupe or you use three attacks that are basically autohit, the PC is at least down (which is better than dead). It would have been nicer to use attacks rather than CdG.
Anyway, something's bad things happen, especially to spellcasters that stand 5' behind melee PCs. I would have pointed that out to everyone so they at least learn something.
Kestler had a good idea on how to softball it. Another way to softball is to try to paralyze all PCs (instead of taking them out when paralyzed), but it sounds like a combination of bad tactics and bad luck made even that possible.
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I also TPKed a group of new-to-PFS players on Maurit. They had managed to diplomacy her and then started loudly discussing whether to kill her right next to her (they were all on the top of the small ridge, having not opened the door yet), eventually deciding to do so, so I had them roll initiative, with no surprise round. They had a sorcerer who was uber-min-maxed for enchantment magic (so no good on Maurit), a generalist wizard with defense magic, magic missile, and color spray (so not much useful for killing Maurit), an archer inquisitor who did not have Precise Shot, and a cleric (who dropped before his first action from Maurit's full attack).
The wizard and inquisitor actually did pretty well, but the sorcerer was completely useless if he couldn't charm and the cleric went down right away. It all came down to the point where the inquisitor dropped with his fast healing judgment still up and the wizard tanked (I ruled Maurit didn't realize the inquisitor would come back up). He rolled a bluff to pretend to still be down and cast a quiet True Strike, then stood up on the next round and fired what would have been the final blow......But since this is a TPK story, he instead rolled a natural 1 and missed.
I let them come in with copies of their characters, since this was the entire group's very first encounter ever in PFS. They did really well against every other encounter after this (particularly since the wizard actually had Terran, allowing communication with the Tremorsensing elemental vis-a-vis that sneaky bastard with the katana). Bad dice rolls and a bad matchup for them are what spelled their demise on Maurit.
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Surprise round, move up to people, who were all bunched up.
First round, everyone is flat footed, sneak attacks go.
kill one person (first hit he was up and made his save, second hit killed him out right) and paralyzed another.
This reads like a full attack action in the surprise round, which is a no-no.
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There is a somewhat common theme here that clerics going down early is often the start of a TPK. It's twew, it's twew!
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Did the group consist of new players to the game, or seasoned playing new characters? If they were new why teach em a a cold hearted lesson? In my opinion the whole TPK is a lil harsh especially in their first couple of mods.
Now if they were experienced players and made poor game play decisions regardless of character level then I could see a TPK. Anyways, every GM is different and it's yer call how the scenario ultimately plays out.
Looks like the players learned a valuable lesson and took the whole TPK experience well.
A good friend of mine who's a very experienced GM said to be he'd take the kid gloves off around level 10, by then the player has a good grasp of the game, the rules, and knows what his or her character brings to the table.
Then again, the party can do everything by the book and still fall victim to the TPK via poor dice rolls. The game should be challenging and fun but Some GM's are just plain sadistic and indiscriminately love killing characters off.
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Surprise round, move up to people, who were all bunched up.
First round, everyone is flat footed, sneak attacks go.
kill one person (first hit he was up and made his save, second hit killed him out right) and paralyzed another.This reads like a full attack action in the surprise round, which is a no-no.
Sounds more like surprise round he had ghoul move up next to group discussing killing said ghoul...first round, ghoul won init and full attacks while group still flat footed.
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I've nearly TPK'd the group here a few times as well. Walking into a flank with Maurit, while blinded by the blindheim, at 1 hp....yeah. Whoops. He drops. The rest of the party is hurting (and mostly blind). It ends with 1 dead pc, 1 stable but in the negs (a gift from the fleeing witch), 2 blinded and running into the desert, and one who can still see but is still running. The stable but in the negs crawled outside, hid behind a rock, and Maurit rolled a nat 1 to not notice the huge blood and guts trail leading to a meal. The party regrouped, blitzed back, and got to kill their now reanimated friend. Oh, and the player who dropped came back with a new character, killed his old self, and got credit.
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That's amazing. You sir, are a heartless monster.
I certainly hope that was meant in jest, because if not...
*your houserule for handling the encounter*
That certainly seems reasonable if you're trying to coddle your players, but it isn't anywhere in the mod that I saw. I say they should chalk it up as a learning experience, and maybe next time will talk before they fight.