Okay, so my group made it though Burnt Offerings and Skinsaw Murders without too many issues. Two died to the Skinsaw Cultists but they were easily raised by a cleric of Desna tending the temple of Desna in Magnimar. Since then however they have wiped during the Hook Mountain Massacre.
The group had cleared the ogres from Fort Rannick when the keen eyed elf magus spotted a dark form in the flood waters cascading down from the partially burst dam. The party raced with all haste to Turtleback Ferry, saved the town and (mostly) survived the encounter with Black Magga.
But their paladin died.
My party prefers cannon reasons for things to happen so a simple "never mind he's not dead" hand waving woundn't do. I did a little research between sessions and presented them with 3 options:
- return to Magnimar and seek help from the same cleric of Desna as had helped them before
- listen to the superstitious villagers and seek out the fey woman in the forest that might be able to help them as she had demonstrated powers beyond the local cleric of Erastil before
- venture into the mountains where rumours held that a cabal of witches lived and practiced strange arts.
The party, being adventurers, took the third option. They failed to find the ogre tracks leading north and climbed Hook Mountain arriving at the Clanhold with no expectation of what was coming.
The rogue was bull rushed from the cliff side and died from the fall; the magus died on the end of an ogre hook just inside the entrance and their grappling, giant-hating dwarf monk waded through about 12 ogres before he was finally dropped by the stone giant sorcerer running the whole show.
After that we took a break, but now the group wants to get back into the campaign. My problem is, I can't find a legitimate crunch method of bringing the players back from the dead. Any suggestions would be most welcome!
The three hags who are in the Mountain use their dark magics to bring the party back to life. Have them even find the Paladin and snag him as well. They then tell the party that the price for their return is to eliminate the Stone Giant Necromancer and then track down and kill the giant who sent him (which is the next chapter of the AP).
The hags already are hesitant about remaining there. This is their way of dealing with these upstart giants who ruined everything.
Actually, that sounds like an idea. The party brought the Paladin's body with them since the original intent had been for the "witches" to res him.
I like Tangents idea but another school of thought is just let the wipe happen as it is and do up new characters who are hired to find the old party by the mayor of Turtleback Ferry.
Sounds like they deserve this so I would let it stick and just go with new characters.
My personal phrase for things like this is 'TPK Bottleneck' where wipes happen in spots difficult to pick things up from(Ex; party dies in a remote location and nobody knows where they went.)
Also can happen if the party had a special item(Like a certain magic seal) that gets snatched by the victors.