My PC's managed to get into a horrible position. They entered the 6 stories tall tower of the BBEG through a window in the fifth floor only to find out, that the BBEG is currently not at home. They then move downwards, locking four guys at the 4ths floor in by using the key of the second vault. On the third floor they triggered an alarm and got into a fight with 6 advanced zombie axe beaks. The alarm informed the second in command, who sent 2 inquisitors and 2 supporting clerics to investigate, while continuing with her ritual in the cellar.
We needed to end the session mid combat, while they are trying to get back up the stairs.
The group consists of four level 7 pc's:
A paladin using sword and board, a twf ranger, a zen archer and a pummeling monk. They are supported by a level 8 shaman.
They are all below half hp and the paladin, who tries to protect their retreat blocking the stairs is on 3 hp.
I don't want to kill them all, but their only way is up and the shaman used most of his spells to get them into the tower in the first place.
How can a get some of them out alive without pulling punches? Getting captured is no option, as the BBEG and his followers never took a prisoner before. They kill everybody and resurrect them instead.
Okay, first thought:
Feather Fall.
A tall wizard tower with windows on the 5th floor that are big enough for people to pass through? Surely the owner has thought of what happens in case a fire breaks out on the lower levels and they're out of spells for the day.
Perhaps there are some emergency feather fall potions on each floor to let the occupants jump out of those unnecessarily large windows as an emergency escape route?
Run back upstairs, chug the potion, and do some BASE jumping out of the base.
The already searched all upper floors outside of the floor they can't enter in their current state (The floor with the 4 guys waiting behind the door).
The owner uses his ring of feather falling to get out, if he wants to. He has no concerns for other members of his organization. They are either good enough to get out or they are not worth to be a living part of his organization.
It can't be a hidden compartment they find by chance, as the +21 perception guy already checked everything. They really took a lot of time.
They surprised me with their entry in the first place. Having the only supporter spend most of his daily ressources to get into a tower of which they have no clue how it is built/guarded inside.
The most creative player already told me he will jump out of the first window, take the falling damage and just run away with 60ft. landspeed. If he resorts to a selfish way to get out of it, i really fear for the others.
Having 1 or even two die is fine, just not 4 or even all 5.
Don't they have rope?
Didn't they plan an exit strategy?
No. It baffled me, but i didn't feel like bringing it to attention. Their plan was to beat everybody inside and the walk out the front door, ignoring the guards posted there, as these where mindless undead and they just assumed, that they are controlled by someone inside the tower and will go on a rampage as soon as that guy is slain.
Don't they have rope?
They have, but not the time to make it work. And hanging outside of the tower of doom on a rope, while the enemies gather on top and on the bottom doesnt seem like a good way to survive.
Well then, sounds like your conscious is clear to me.
The players had a crappy plan, spent way too many of their resources just getting into the place through the back door, and had no exit strategy. Basically, they came up with a horrible plan, and now they're paying the price for it.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for giving the players a bit of fudge when the dice are just having a raging hate on for them and ruins a sound plan, but this isn't that. This is the players making dumb decisions, and expecting you to make the universe bend over backwards to get them out of it.
Forget that, they screwed up, they have to accept the consequences. You built the tower ahead of time, you didn't change anything to invalidate their attempt, you didn't set out to screw them, or anything like that. They took a gamble on the upper window, and they lost.
Based on what you've said, I wouldn't do a thing to help them. They got themselves into this mess, its up to them to get themselves out of it. If they can't, thats their fault, not yours.
Congratulations on creating a situation with real dramatic tension!
I suggest that, in the upper levels of the tower to which they retreat, you deposit not one but several potential tools for escape. But don't spell it out for them which one is best.
Keep the pressure on, when they rush into the room list off all this stuff along with some useless set dressing. Don't give them a lot of time to discuss - limit their discussion to what they can conceivably say to each other while fending off the oncoming attackers.
Man, I'm a little jealous of your players, this scene sounds INTENSE.
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If you just really want to get them out alive, but still make them pay for their stupidity, Mythic there gave me an idea with his portal idea.
Have the BBEG return to the tower through some kind of portal/gateway that remains open for a few seconds after he steps through.
The group's only chance is to bum rush past the guy and dive through the portal to gods know where with no lifelines or support net. Sure, campaign just took a left turn to where they're simply trying to survive and get back home, but thats better than outright dying.
If you just really want to get them out alive, but still make them pay for their stupidity, Mythic there gave me an idea with his portal idea.
Have the BBEG return to the tower through some kind of portal/gateway that remains open for a few seconds after he steps through.
The group's only chance is to bum rush past the guy and dive through the portal to gods know where with no lifelines or support net. Sure, campaign just took a left turn to where they're simply trying to survive and get back home, but thats better than outright dying.
SUPPORTED.
This plan also has great potential for the logical introduction of exotic replacement PCs for those who didn't make it.
I'd suggest that one of the meat shields block the stairs (path of retreat) and fight full defense - get a choke point and hold it. Hopefully his AC will be good enough so that the enemy only lands hits on a 20.
Perhaps pummeling monk or twf ranger can do this.
Zen archer then fires into the melee, doing the damage to slowly knock them down. Heal up the Paladin and switch places as needed - cycle through your meat shields until the enemy is dead, and leave the killing to the Zen Archer.
Have another person get back to the window on the 5th floor and secure a rope for climbing out/down. If they are too daft to bring rope - TPK them - the penalty for stupidity is death.
Does your shaman have any spells/items? Even something as mundane as an Obscuring Mist can make it tough to hit your stairwell blocker. Ditto darkness. Anything that can provide a concealment miss chance to add to the total defense.
I think they might be able to extricate themselves, but it would take a bit of good luck and good management, and I'm sensing that the later may be a bit lacking...(no exit strategy? seriously?).
Good luck.
They have ropes and grappling hooks. But as i already said, climbing on the outside is no real option. The tower is in a the middle of a city, which is under full control of the organization.
Climbing is just a slow process.
I really like the portal idea. The BBEG is currently out for a hunt, to gain new undead minions similar to his axe beaks. He could teleport back and they make it through. They will be punished anyway, because the paladin will most likely die just to get them safely upwards.
Thanks for all the help and ideas.
They have ropes and grappling hooks. But as i already said, climbing on the outside is no real option. The tower is in a the middle of a city, which is under full control of the organization.
Geez, did the entire party use Int as their dump stat? Thats just... wow.
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The owner uses his ring of feather falling to get out, if he wants to. He has no concerns for other members of his organization. They are either good enough to get out or they are not worth to be a living part of his organization.
It can't be a hidden compartment they find by chance, as the +21 perception guy already checked everything. They really took a lot of time.
Maybe the way some of the minions get out of the tower is with potions of featherfall or they keep a scroll of Dimension Door handy. If they manage to kill someone, they could be carrying a means of egress. Or even just healing potions that could get the PCs back into the fight.
If the paladin goes down, and the BBEG is all about undead, keeping him alive to play 'make the paladin fall' could be a way to not kill him outright, and could give the others time to mount a rescue. Might be a good idea to give the paladin player an NPC to play in the meantime, though, since sitting around while everyone else is fighting could get real boring. Or if he dies outright, the knowledge that the BBEG is going to turn him into an undead monstrosity could serve as good motivation to get them to regroup and come back with a better plan. An intelligent undead ex-paladin could be an entertaining villain if they do manage to take out the BBEG.
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I'm in the camp of let them die for their mistakes.
Really.
I've run and I've played in campaigns where the GM would not let PCs die even for the most stupid of mistakes. It just rewards them for being stupid. I once played a first level thief (yes, it was THAT long ago) who single-handedly killed trolls, yes trolls, lots of them, because I knew the DM wouldn't let me die - it was amazing how inaccurate those trolls were (they never seemed to hit me). Yeah, I was a jerk to that DM but he let it happen...
The point is, if there are no consequences for the PCs actions, then the players stop being players. There is no game if there is no chance to lose. And if every path the players can choose always leads to success, then they are not rewarded for choosing good paths and they're not forced to face the consequences for choosing bad paths. This isn't a game, it's a children's fairy tale where the handsome prince always wins, and probably a bad one at that (even children's stories need conflict resolution with some sense that bad things can happen to the hero).
So don't save them.
Maybe they'll surprise you. Maybe not.
If you have a TPK, then everyone gets new characters. Even better, everyone learns an important lesson that it is, and should be, possible to lose when they play a game and, more importantly, it's up to them to make sure it doesn't happen again.
Besides, think how much fun you'll have when their new PCs take on this tower, only to face undead versions of their former PCs...
Ok this is obviously like asking the irrelevant question of WWJD, because the individual in question would not be in this mess!
So I am given to understand that the spellcaster blew most of their spells getting into a place with no plan to get out?
The spellcaster is an npc they rescued and keep on the short leash. As thus they mostly decided what he prepares and casts. As such, i let them blew all his level 4 and 3 spells. Now he is left with barkskin, two cure spells, some weak utility spells and his hexes.
I'm in the camp of let them die for their mistakes.
Really.
I've run and I've played in campaigns where the GM would not let PCs die even for the most stupid of mistakes. It just rewards them for being stupid. I once played a first level thief (yes, it was THAT long ago) who single-handedly killed trolls, yes trolls, lots of them, because I knew the DM wouldn't let me die - it was amazing how inaccurate those trolls were (they never seemed to hit me). Yeah, I was a jerk to that DM but he let it happen...
The point is, if there are no consequences for the PCs actions, then the players stop being players. There is no game if there is no chance to lose. And if every path the players can choose always leads to success, then they are not rewarded for choosing good paths and they're not forced to face the consequences for choosing bad paths. This isn't a game, it's a children's fairy tale where the handsome prince always wins, and probably a bad one at that (even children's stories need conflict resolution with some sense that bad things can happen to the hero).
So don't save them.
Maybe they'll surprise you. Maybe not.
If you have a TPK, then everyone gets new characters. Even better, everyone learns an important lesson that it is, and should be, possible to lose when they play a game and, more importantly, it's up to them to make sure it doesn't happen again.
Besides, think how much fun you'll have when their new PCs take on this tower, only to face undead versions of their former PCs...
I have killed them twice in this campaign. There are always consequences in my world. I must admit, i mostly dislike the taste of having the new characters introduced to the nitty and gritty details of this massive undead invasion. The pcs one of the few persons to act behind enemy lines and as such they are collecting important information for themselves on how to stop all this. The outside world does not even know where this all origins from nor who is responsable for it.
Still a great post, thanks. I think i take the portal route and let the dice decide, which 1 or 2 of these guys doesnt make it out alive.
I have killed them twice in this campaign.
Priceless!
Then they are no stranger to bad ideas and suffering the consequences, and also maybe they aren't especially good at learning from their mistakes...
I've had groups like this myself, so I feel your pain.
Did I read they entered at 5 and went down, with 6 remaining unexplored?
They can overhear, from the opposition facing them:
"How'd they get in?"
"From the top, I guess."
"They came through the demon's room?"
"Must have."
"And you want to face them?"
"You want to face the master?!"
"Hey, I was... charmed."
Part of my first initial "welcome to the game" briefing with players is about how sometimes it is more beneficial to back off, retreat, buff out, then come back to kick butt; that you take chances if you spread yourself thin when the chips are down... and PC death is a real thing in the game.
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Maybe I'm missing something, but where exactly is the stupidity coming in? Based on what I read in the OP, they are acting like every single adventuring party I've ever seen.
The part where they made a one-way assault on a large fortified building.
I've seen a lot of players that bad. I've also seen good ones.
Maybe I'm missing something, but where exactly is the stupidity coming in? Based on what I read in the OP, they are acting like every single adventuring party I've ever seen.
The stupid things are mostly:
1) They assaulted a fortified position in the middle of enemy territory without having a plan that extended beyond how to get inside the tower. They did not have an escape plan, and by trapping enemies behind locked doors behind them, they cut off the entrance they used, making it impossible to go back the way they came.
2) They spent most of their resources (their supply of 3rd and 4th level spells) just on getting into the tower, and left nothing in reserve for getting back out.
There's a name for when you go into heavily defended enemy territory without bothering to plan on how you're getting back out. They're called suicide runs.
I will suggest having the party NPC listen at and then suggest trying the doors they locked. The bad guys they locked in of course went out their own "escape route" so they could warn the rest of the tower leaving the PCs a place to retreat into. The PCs can follow the path the smart NPCs used to get out. Kind of like Bilbo following Gollum out of the lower caves, the bad guys lead them right to an exit. Of course they have to unlock the door they blocked during melee...
I did find it odd that they would use a large chunk of their resources just trying to get inside a single building. Must have been freaking Fort Knox! I'm guessing it more likely that they used much of their resources getting through the surrounding community unnoticed as well.
Not having a plan seems par for the course to me just because adventures tend to be very spontaneous. Much of the time you have no idea what the GM is going to throw at you, and if you do, you often don't have much time to prepare. This doesn't seem to be the case in this particular scenario though, so it is surprising there wasn't a bit more forethought put into their assault (especially if they've died twice already this campaign*).
Moving forward without first clearing the rooms behind with no indication of there being another way out was quite foolhardy. No ifs, and, or buts.
As Mythic Evil Lincoln suggested, provide them the tools for escape but do it in such a way that they still have to put the pieces together themselves. This way you are not robbing them of the opportunity to escape but you aren't handing them a get out of jail free card either. TPK's can be very disruptive so it's good to provide the chance to avoid them even when the players paint themselves into a corner like this.
One other thing: it might be worth rethinking your strategy as a DM if you've already had two TPK's. I'm not sure what time span these occurred over but if it's not very far into the game/story, consider that your players may not be as clever as you'd hoped and it might be time to adjust your expectations of them. Unless of course the lack of continuity or overarching storyline doesn't bother you. It can be tough to find the right balance between coddling your players and relentlessly murdering their characters for every instance of poor judgement. Hopefully you can find the sweet spot.
The TPK's were never my fault as i got told by all my players. And after rethinking it, it was only one tpk.
First time they wanted to cross a 40 ft. wide street to keep on folloing the gaseous form of a vampire. A large warparty of the undead+cultists was moving along that street(Several thousands).
They decided to throw the arcanist into the middle of the street and cast obscuring mist and then run through it. The enemies closed of all exits from the street and then killed them.
Second time they went up to another fortress. After they heard, that people trained inside the walls, they decided to stop this evil training camp. When they moved alongside its outer wall, they saw a group of enemies patrolling. They attacked and the sound drew archers onto the wall. They then cowered behind a towershield and tried to escape through a dimension door wand. The only user at the time was a alchemist with umd. He needed to roll a 14 and didnt to it for over 12 rounds. The Vitalist and the towershield fighter were slain in the process through forces moving into melee.
The alchemist and the ranger escaped into a near building and after a golem crushed the wall, the alchemist finally managed to teleport the ranger and himself into safety.
1: Submit exact constraints on problem + time limit and statblocks of party to r/hpmor.
2: Sort through the sea of hypothesises for valid solution. Alternatively make them do it.
3: ???
4: profit.
Edit: You could just kill them and remind them to buy scrolls of everything so this wont happen the next time.
Waiting to hear how this resolved.
I see only two possible solutions:
A) It turns out that second in command and the paladin are cousins - both orphaned and raised as brothers by their grandparents. They swore on their grammie's deathbed they would never harm one another. Grammie taught them that if they talk out the conflict, they get cookies.
B) The elven cavalry rides through at the last second and turns the tide of the battle. When the battle is won they ride off into the starry night, never to be seen again... until they once more have need of elven cavalry.
Well there is option C, which is TPK and turn them into vampires, then continue the campaign.