For our group it seems that the eryines at the begining of book four of COT was just mean.
Savage Tide:
Crystal Ooze and Mother of All in Sea Wyvern's Wake got a player apiece.
Olangru in Here There Be Monsters nearly got another.
Kingmaker:
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Carrion crown has quite a few:
The air elemental and eryines in schlos caromarc were awful.
The elder god at the end of wake of the watcher dropped a PC to 0 sanity instantly.
The banshee in [abbey at beginning of book 6] killed half the party.
I can't remember anything in Kingmaker being that bad.
EDIT: The group was pretty OP though. Rolled 3 black dragons in part 3 on random encounters and killed them all without a death.
Nice list so far lets keep them going. The demilich in COTCT was a tpk for us.
Savage Tide:** spoiler omitted **
Kingmaker:** spoiler omitted **Still playing KM so will add to this once I encounter another near- or truly deadly situation.
I rolled a Will-o-Wisp in chapter one too.
The players were blessed with a miracle and rolled insane Stealth checks, while the monster rolled a 1 on Perception.
Savage Tide:** spoiler omitted **
Kingmaker:** spoiler omitted **Still playing KM so will add to this once I encounter another near- or truly deadly situation.
I rolled a Will-o-Wisp in chapter one too.
The players were blessed with a miracle and rolled insane Stealth checks, while the monster rolled a 1 on Perception.
My Oracle managed a crit with her eldritch bolt ([Su] and ranged touch attack, thus the only thing that could hit it and not have to deal with SR), and drew suggestion from the crit deck.
For my groups, they'll one shot encounters +2 CRs higher, and then die on -2 CR encounters.
Example Random encounter in a RotR game was a dragon, they downed the dragon with no issues, next encounter was a group of stirges that were -3 CR to the party and it nearly wiped them.
My players have amazing BBEG tactics and then just try and zerg the "easy" fights.
Anybody else have one, I know there been more butts kicked then this in paizos aps.
That would be RotRL, the buffed up lamia noble, right?
IF you bother to dispel her, not quite so bad.
==Aelryinth
In my personal experience:
Kingmaker:
Age of Worms:
Legacy of Fire:
RotRL
CotCT
Edit: Added spoiler tag.
Maybe not the deadliest, but still very deadly encounters:
RotRL
CoT
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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Carrion Crown does have a bunch of them. Of particular note:
The witches at the end of book 5 are super annoying, in the way that witches can be. They can be deadly if one party member hits the nearby panic trap and manages to run through three more encounters and end up in the witch room.
Serpent's Skull
Legacy of Fire
Maybe not the deadliest, but still very deadly encounters:
RotRL
** spoiler omitted **CoT
** spoiler omitted **
What do you mean by "meant to be a blaze of glory", exactly?
Does the text say you need to TPK the party in that fight, or something similar? Because that'd just be stupid.
Oh, we're including Slumbering Tsar?
Yeah. Stay away from wells in Frog God modules.
==Aelryinth
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Savage Tide:** spoiler omitted **
Kingmaker:** spoiler omitted **Still playing KM so will add to this once I encounter another near- or truly deadly situation.
Truth to the SM in Kingmaker, although our DM was flexible. He rolled the SM as our random encounter when we were camping. Most of us heard the crashing towards our campsite, and we were in shock when the thing lumbered into view. Doing a quick knowledge check, my cleric of Erastil yelled for the fire to be put out. We won initiative and the first thing we did was "Create Water"/stomp on the fire. With the 'threat' gone, the SM lumbered off into the woods again as we collectively held our breath and then let it out with a whoosh once it was gone.
Carrion Crown:
Kingmaker
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Pre-Anniversary Xanesha. So many grown men crying.
:)
Pre-Anniversary Xanesha. So many grown men crying.
That was going to be my first mention.
Harrowstone in Carrion Crown had more than one.
The tougher random encounter in Kingmaker.
The chapter 2 boss combo in AoW.
The Spire of Longshadow undead solder in AoW. I can't remember their names.
The chapter 4 boss in AoW.
I wish I'd gotten past Chapter One of AoW, everything I've heard about it sounds awesome. My poor Paladin never got to see past
The boss in City of Broken Idols (STAP). My group took three attempts to bring him down and that seemed pretty average from other messageboard posts. (But they were fun battles to run!)
Scarwall in CoCT and not just the
*Spoilers*
In the sandbox AP of Skull and Shackles (City of Seven Spears) our party went directly to Olujimi by accident who summoned 4 Dire Apes, Akkituk (a high lvl cleric) and, the nail in our coffin, Grugonoth- the half-fiend advanced dire ape.
With our healer dominated, blasphemy in the area and the massive about of dmg these bosses put out it didn't take more than 5 rounds to close our books and start coming up with new character ideas. TPK.
In Savage Tide :
Some encounters we didn't expect were far more scary : in the Sea Wyvern's Wake, the hydra attack while the group was bathing was very close to kill some of us. And the hungry T-Rex when the party wakes up on the Isle of Dread without some of his stuff.
In RotRL :
In Kingmaker :
The chapter 2 boss combo in AoW.
The deadly part of chapter 2 for us was...
What do you mean by "meant to be a blaze of glory", exactly?
Does the text say you need to TPK the party in that fight, or something similar? Because that'd just be stupid.
I merely implied that since he's the final battle, it doesn't matter as much if all the PCs live or not. Of course, I'd prefer that my players didn't wipe against him, but a final heroic death could be meaningful.
Rise of the Runelords is the one I have the most experience with, so here are the toughest encounters I've seen in it, in order of when they are encountered.
2. Fort Rannick. Ogre hooks have a x4 critical modifier, and I think all of the ogres with said hooks have power attack at their disposal. Maybe on average, the encounters aren't that deadly, but if any of your PCs are having an off day, then watch out.
3. Original Mokmurian. Not sure where 3 of his wizard levels went in the Anniversary edition, because they really make a difference for this encounter's difficulty. Solid Fog and Reverse Gravity makes it tough to reach him, while he can shoot disintigrate at any of your softies, or maybe a Flesh to Stone. He isn't even squishy like most wizards, thanks to his stone giant base.
4. Morphic Mist. This trap resulted in a near TPK both times I've run the adventure. That's just bad luck though - the real kicker is that if you don't have any method to dispel this (or the person who can was polymorphed), you can't go back to any city to restore it. Yeah...
5. Anniversary Karzoug. I think this actually rivals Xanesha in the original. Not only did Karzoug get a nice buff to his stats and abilities (he's now a Thassilonian specialist and has Azlanti stats), but he's encountered with a blue dragon, rune giant, and two storm giants. Karzoug's absurdly high intelligence lets him cast a crap load of spells (also thanks to his artifact spellbook), and they have monster DCs to save against. He has significant HP, DR, fast healing, and a weapon that casts healing spells on him. He also gets to cast wish to restore his hp and his minions' hp to full. Thankfully, you have the potential to have both a planetar and Viorian helping you out for this fight, and he's not able to chase you outside of his domain.
Honorable mentions go to Malfeshnakor, Black Magga (didn't include her since you don't really have to kill her), Delvahine (that dominate...), the Disjunction Trap in the original, and Viorian.
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Oh yeah, shambling mounds in Kingmaker...
Fun times! No one died, but they were not happy!
But the deadliest was when my party of level one adventurers, freshly arrived in the Stolen Lands, took great personal offense at the treatment of Oleg and Svetlana and immediately rode out to take down the Stag Lord. At level 1. Yeah, the only reason that wasn't a TPK was because people spent Hero Points to cheat death...
*Spoilers*
In the sandbox AP of Skull and Shackles (City of Seven Spears) our party went directly to Olujimi by accident who summoned 4 Dire Apes, Akkituk (a high lvl cleric) and, the nail in our coffin, Grugonoth- the half-fiend advanced dire ape.
With our healer dominated, blasphemy in the area and the massive about of dmg these bosses put out it didn't take more than 5 rounds to close our books and start coming up with new character ideas. TPK.
Second Darkness:
The mad Ghost in the side adventure in The Armageddon Echo
Carrion Crown:
Skulls & Shackles:
Every time the botfly swarms turned up on Bonewrack Isle in Pt II. I ended up having to nerf those things something chronic, since none of the players had grabbed any alchemists fire or the like, and had no AoE spells or abilities.
Not exactly a deadly encounter here, but an amusing one. Also in Pt II of The Wormwood Mutiny. The fighter decided to climb the large tree outside the fortified hut on top of the bluffs on his own... and promptly fell prey to the Vine Chokers living at the top... when he realised that he had no hope of defeating them on his own since the only weapon he was carrying was his falchion, and he was stuck up a bloody tree unable to use both hands for it, he took what he considered to be the only suitable action... he grappled one of those suckers and let himself fall, surviving about 2 points from actual death, and only living past that because the cleric was standing two feet from where he landed. Based on some random rolls on my part, and a little bit of a desire to throw the guy a bone for doing something so hilariously reckless, I ruled that the vine choker was caught between the fighter and the ground and ended up flatter than a pancake.
Good times...
Shackled City
Age of Worms
Savage Tide
Legacy of Fire
Kingmaker
Jade Regent
Savage Tide
Age of Worms
We're just starting this one- wind warriors in the whispering cairn, Theldrick in the three faces of evil, the Faceless One in the three faces of evil.
Carrion Crown:
Spoiler:As DM for this one, the air elemental and eryines summon traps in Book 2 were absolutely deadly. Combined for 3 PC deaths, 1 fall and 2 arrow pincushions.
We just had our first death in Carrion Crown from the latter
One more for Kingmaker:
Very luck-of-the-rolls here.
Another Kingmaker:
Adding to the Kingmaker list:
His AC was too high for the players, he knocked both the Monk and Ranger to low HP and killed off the party Cleric.
Considering they had stomped all the previous encounters to the curb with ease, I can see why it became a memorable moment for them.
Skulls and Shackles
only "testplayed" this with our normal 10th level chars characters since the GM had decided to rebuild the entire fourth part of the AP
Cyclops fortress
Gargantuan Trapper. Going for a "rearrangement retreat" from the cyclopses in the guard chamber the group proceeded backwards into this area , the Trapper "ate" our witch (hello, dear AoO), then having munched her out on the second round - average damage of 35 points by "pass-me-by-constrict" - ate our Oracle, then ate the invisible bard (Combat Reflexes, Blindsight... hmm tasty ) . Everybody else choose the path of lesser resistance and fled.... reach 15', Perception +27 CMB +31... right. Classic "first few rooms" encounter
the Evil Eye itself....
yeah, Enervation anyone... random loss of positive modifiers. Nevermind the two Gholdakos with their "permanent blind" effect.. or the Slow (helped very well by the constant and irredeemably hitting "Enervation").... or the "Trap the Soul" for anyone stupid enough to actually touch the gem, which of course you are expected to do....
TPK
other group : lost 5 chars to Mosquito swarms on Bonewrack. TPK
Good thing, we only did this as "random sport" instead of in the campaign.
Savage Tides
Baboon swarm in first temple on isle, munch, chomp, almost instant death
Demons with "random death drop from the air"... but strangely enough, not for them... different gravity, I assume.
Crimson Throne
The Carrion Golem in AP#1. Infected three characters with typhoid and much else. Noone much bothered for heal checks - the cleric was very prissy - infected half the town by visiting brothels and the bathhouses in celebration afterwards and actually lost two characters from disease crossover. Leprosy, Cholera and Typhoid, if I recall correctly.
Nasty... but in a way, well deserved. Also pre-ordained part two^^