How often are TPKs in APs?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


So, I've finally gotten around to running my first AP (Kingmaker to be precise), and I was just wondering how often everyone around here has been TPK'd in an AP [oh, and specifically which one(s)]? I'm currently going to run it for six players with 20-point buy using the 6-player conversion rules for Kingmaker posted on this forum, and I became curious of which APs (if any)were notorious for TPKs.

Liberty's Edge

We had a 4 person tpk during the first book of skulls and shackles.

skull and shackles:
Con drain followed by 8 grindylows does not lead to an easy time.


I've read enough threads about TPK. It seems to me that it isn't about the AP it's about the GM. Some people play it closely by the rules and LET a TPK happen. Others try to prevent a TPK from happening. Lots of threads say 'there was nothing I could do' or words to that affect. But they were in charge, so they could change how things were supposed to happen. Just because the book says one thing does not mean it has to happen that way.

We played Second Darkness two players died at lower levels and that was it.

BTW, I have read about lots of people saying they had TPKs in Second Darkness. If you go to the AP forums you will find threads like that where they will count how many TPKs they get.


They don't happen much because the encounters are not normally that difficult, but it seems every AP has the one encounter that could wipe a group.

Paizo Employee Developer

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Interesting timing for this thread. Two hours ago, we got TPK'd in Skull & Shackles. :)

It wasn't that Rob was being a tough GM or that we used especially bad tactics or that the dice were falling crummy or the encounter was overly tough, but rather a perfect storm of a small percentage of each of those factors. I'm pretty sure that most TPKs occur due to varying degrees of those factors.


wraithstrike wrote:
They don't happen much because the encounters are not normally that difficult, but it seems every AP has the one encounter that could wipe a group.

Perhaps that's the very reason why they happen - complacency. If the norm isn't all that dangerous then the players tend to become sloppy in their preparation.

As a DM I try to avoid them as much as possible, there are things you can do to make that happen. Sometimes though doing so will look so obvious that you're left with two unsatisfactory options - first, pull off something stupid that just wouldn't happen to save the PC's or second, let it happen and possibly ruin your campaign and that usually includes a whole lot of work and effort.

I've had two AP's end due to TPK's, both in book 5 (CotCT/KM). At such a late stage in a campaign it becomes disjointed to replace every character.

One thing I have noticed with PC deaths in general is that the later they happen the less background driven or roleplayed they become. They end up a bunch of numbers rather than an actual character.


None so far actually! There's allways that one who runs away or is just barely able to defeat the bad guys/monsters.

Liberty's Edge

I had 2 TPK in 30 years of D&D as a GM, but that is because my players know when to run and it was a bit easier to flee in the earlier editions of AD&D/D&D. We had several near TPK during that time, and it generally was for a combination of factors, as cited by Adam Daigle.

About Kingmaker and the 6 man conversion, my player had no problem running it, with the exception of the

Kingmaker spoiler:
baobhan sith in the abandoned keep in the second module
. Check carefully how it work, it is a complicated monster ad a lot op GM played it the wrong way, making it exceedingly deadly. read the thread in the Kingmaker AP for some useful comment.


I've been in one TPK when we ran into the boss in Kingmaker's third book. The GM pulled a deus ex machina there just before we were all beaten, I could still have dimension doored out myself, but it was pretty much a TPK. We had already been one short by the time we arrived at the boss because the gnome inquisitor was turned into wyvern lunch just before we got to the dungeon. We also hadn't found a certain ring in that dungeon and didn't have anything to counter paralysis or dominate person, so we didn't stand much of a chance at all. These days I always grab dispel magic as a spell whenever I can. Some of the players in that group and the GM recently played RoRL and they had a TPK at the boss in book 2, something to do with half the party being turned into stone. Again nobody in the party had dispel magic.


Naturally, whether an AP presents a TPK situation to your party, depends on your party. What are they, how strong are they, how well do they synergize etc etc.

With that said, I'm taking my group through the last book of Rise of the Runelords now, and, at least to my group, there has not been a single encounter written in book 5 that was not a potential TPK. And I believe it will be the same for book 6 as far as I've been able to read.

-Nearyn


Played/Run
Savage tide till the end of Lightless Depths
Kingmaker just finisher Book 3
Serpents Skull in Book 3
Jade Regent still in book 1

These things vary a lot. Nearly had a TPK at the end of book 3 of Kingmker. I think the DM pulled some punches or it would have been. Obviously I do not know for certain as I am a player.
Had a random encounter on the Isle of Dread (with random weather) which nearly killed the party with some lowish level dinosaur’s. That was just bad luck, weather impeding perceptions allowing an ambush followed poor dice rolls. These thing are often balanced on a knife edge and come from encounters you do not see coming.
Some encounters are famous of course. End of Book 2 of RotRL !

Sovereign Court

We came close to a TPK in kingmaker during a session I had to miss. I was at work and my GM emailed me telling me things were getting bad. Then he emailed me telling me the party one by one was knowingly walking into a buzzsaw to try and save the other party members. He finally emailed me and said everyone was dead but my character and they were about to have him walk into the buzzsaw and I was like "F no invis and run away!" I guess I am the voice of reason for the party when adventuring and was told I couldn't miss sessions anymore :)

Of course that is an oversimplification of the situation but really the only times we came close to TPK is when the players made really poor decisions. We have had a lot of death over the years but no TPKs. We added hero points which are more like dont die points for my group. We dont mind because then the GM doesn't have to take it easy on us we like a challenging game. The factors of TPKs are numerous and usually based on playstyle.


We nearly TPK'd in Kingmaker several times, due to stupidity. The first time we fought a couple of trolls as 3rd-level PCs or less. We didn't understand the alchemist class, or we would have lost the battle. (Turned out they were drinking potions too fast.)

We were nearly killed by a swarm of bats in book 1. Not one of us had an AoE spell that day, and bats are invincible to melee and ranged. We found them in a tomb, and had to leave, prep new spells, and come back the next day. The pacing of Kingmaker makes that an easy option though. (My druid PC prepped Gust of Wind.)

In book 2, half of us were blinded, and we didn't have a cleric, so no Remove Blindness for us. We would have been vulnerable to a TPK there.

Later in book 2, an undead wizard (too weak to be a lich) nearly TPK'd us just with Fireball. We got to his cave system by boat, which meant we were packed like sardines. Most of us had poor Reflex saves since most of us were melee brutes. And then when we got to him, the poison gas kept hitting us with daze effects. The wizard died because my druid was able to just barely reach him while wildshaped and then pull him off his ledge to melee level (I failed 1/3rd of those saves), and our magus used Spider Climb to get up to him and shock him (magus failed 2/3rds of those saves).

The fight against the barbarian lord in book 4 was nearly a TPK, but that was in part because the DM was giving up XP and not just level ups, and we had fallen four levels behind at that point.


Not had one......danger that it kills the AP dead in its track

I think two non reversible deaths is the most we have had in an encounter


Nearyn wrote:

Naturally, whether an AP presents a TPK situation to your party, depends on your party. What are they, how strong are they, how well do they synergize etc etc.

With that said, I'm taking my group through the last book of Rise of the Runelords now, and, at least to my group, there has not been a single encounter written in book 5 that was not a potential TPK. And I believe it will be the same for book 6 as far as I've been able to read.

-Nearyn

That is a pretty weird occurrence! In my RotRL game, every fight from book 3 onward has been a joke really. The dm has gotten tired of it and gave all the monsters triple health, items they don't have, new feats, etc

From what I understand, this is the case for most aps, the first couple books are pretty tough, and then they slide off into easy-mode from a combination of high level play being borked and barely any playtesting


I give my characters one hero point per level that's usable *if* they die and want to 'gm fiat' it away - the only stipulation is that I get to create the story of why the survived.

We do use a house rule that if you roll a nat 20 it's a potential crit - a second one is a second potential (confirming the first) and so on. It is rare but occasionally happens that someone (more often a player - but) gets a very very luck string of 20's - I'd say about once every 8 months or so, if that's a monster I enjoy being able to play it straight without wincing - and the players don't play turtle in every encounter - which creates (in my opinion) more interesting encounters. It is interesting however when they level up - and shortly thereafter someone has to use the point - you can tell they think about it every encounter from that point on, which seems to re-enforce the 'adventuring is deadly' without the agnst that comes with a player death.

I am running RotRL also - and in book five especially I'll be surprised if actual player death (not TPK perhaps) is much more common at that point - the encounters are very dangerous if played up (and many of the opponents are high intelligence so should be playing as smart as you can manage).

With the lower levels many of the enemies are pretty low intelligence - with those I try to make sure they make bigger mistakes and use horrible tactics - which helps prevent that kind of thing. For example wild animals (the way I play them) tend to target either the first thing they see (or /random between multiples) *or* the last thing that hit them, goblins frequently try to grapple and bite or will provoke AoO's (because they are goblins) - an NPC fighter won't make those kinds of mistakes, nor should more intelligent monsters.


Well there is Xanesha in the original RotRL (boss of book 2).


CWheezy wrote:
Nearyn wrote:

Naturally, whether an AP presents a TPK situation to your party, depends on your party. What are they, how strong are they, how well do they synergize etc etc.

With that said, I'm taking my group through the last book of Rise of the Runelords now, and, at least to my group, there has not been a single encounter written in book 5 that was not a potential TPK. And I believe it will be the same for book 6 as far as I've been able to read.

-Nearyn

That is a pretty weird occurrence! In my RotRL game, every fight from book 3 onward has been a joke really. The dm has gotten tired of it and gave all the monsters triple health, items they don't have, new feats, etc

From what I understand, this is the case for most aps, the first couple books are pretty tough, and then they slide off into easy-mode from a combination of high level play being borked and barely any playtesting

Weird indeed. Did you finish the path? If not, where are you presently?

book 5:
My party nearly bit the dust in both the Iron Cages and in the Halls of Wrath. It almost went wrong for them in the Shimmering Veils, but it was never really THAT close to a TPK situation.

Did you fight Arkrhyst? How did it go? My party was at 20 or fewer hp after the first 3 rounds and dimensiondoor'ed for dear life.

-Nearyn


We are just entering the thing, I think book five

Spoiler:

forge of whatever.

He did things like have the scribbler summon two tarry demodands for us to fight during the raid on sandpoint


Oh, another important thing to note is that we are like, 50% of our WBL.

We are all level 14, and I have 86k in gear, and that is with me crafting 95% of my items. This is true for most of our party, except our ranger


Having a couple of hero points in your back pocket can help. This may seem a bit cheesy but it can save the helpful GM from having to employ a deus ex machina.


CWheezy wrote:

A response to my question

rise of the runelords book 5:

When my party encountered the Scribbler and Yerrin-Ku the Glabrezu, I had the Scribbler call out for his hounds who arrived 2d4 rounds later.

The battle started out with Yerrin-Ku stunning the witch with his power-word, then, on the following round, landing the paladin on the ceiling with reversed gravity, while the scribbler tore into the stunned witch and used attacks of opportunity on the bard and rogue if chance arose.

Then Yerrin-Ku managed to summon a demonic colleague and proceeded to enter combat. My party barely clawed their way out of that encounter, with the paladin at 2hp, the monk unconcious, the bard unconcious and bleeding, the rogue at 5hp and the witch dead.

-Nearyn


Nearyn wrote:
CWheezy wrote:

A response to my question

** spoiler omitted **

-Nearyn

I hit the dogs with a persistent greater command (Do nothing) and our barbarian went one by one and murdered them all


I think how often TPK happen is a player/DM thing rather than an issue with the AP. Alot of the AP's do have one encounter often key to the story that is really hard but in the long run AP's theres lots of information for Dm's to handle that.

in the 2 AP ive finished (Rise of the runelords and skull and shackles) we have not had a single TPK nor did we in the AP we did to lvl 13 (jade regent)

However, a friend of mine ran rise of the runelords and his group actually whiped so many times hed lost any connection to the story... i think 4 times at least at thistletop.

I think really how often it happens will be a combination of DM and player attitude.


I have TPK'd my PCs three times in 25+ years (pre-PF). Sometimes there are bad choices made that ripple out, sometimes the dice are cruel. It really sucks though, because now your campaign is over.


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We're all Call of C'thulhu players so a TPK isn't an unknown. As players we are cautious to leave an obvious paper trail with NPCs designed as possible replacements/cohorts. This is to stop a campaign ending.

The only time that its has happened in the games I have run is because PCs have become complacent or made dumb choices. Only twice in PF games.


I think I hold the record on dying in Call of Cthulhu. I even had two suicides to escape a more horrible death.


I would try looking at the Kingmaker Oituaries if you are planning to run it. It will easily point out the nasty parts.

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2kprp?Kingmaker-Obituaries#1

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