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I seldom get more than 1 kill in a scenario as a GM and they usually get better within a round. I've never been part of a TPK as a player, either. My experience is that most tables in my lodge have at least 1-2 players who are capable enough to handle nearly anything the scenario throws at them and we virtually never have tables with open seats. On top of that, a lot of players come with multiple characters within the scenario tier, so they select characters based on party balance and subtier selection, removing unnecessary concerns from playing up.
My most recent kill in a PFS scenario, funny enough, was due to playing up...but it was the level 5 in a high tier 5-9 eating 16d6 fire damage in round one.
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I've been playing PFS for three years (and GM'd it a little) and not been part of a TPK on either side of the screen. I have heard apocryphal stories though, and at big cons have heard nearby tables collapse. But it's not a common occurence.
The two that i can think of were both the result of poor play on the part of the players. One was a case of PCs attacking a powerful and dangerous NPC who really ought to be helped instead. The second was a four-person party with very bad tactics and a lack of knowledge of their own class features. Not with pre-gens either.
Venture-Captain, Netherlands
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I've never experienced a TPK, on either side of the screen *knocks on wood*.
There have been a few close calls. Usually when people die at my table its due to bad luck. Enemies with multiple attacks. Attack 1, 2, 3 hit. The player is left with 8HP. Then the fourth also hits. That's bad luck.
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I've GMed 5 almost TPKs sometimes a person or two made it out, more often than not most made it out alive with at most 1 actually dead with another one or more unconscious. Death is a part of being an adventurer, while I'm not out to kill the players (and don't really care for it when it happens) the characters I'm running are just as the pathfinders are out to kill them.
All of these situations arose from one of three situations or a combination of them.
a) An under prepared party - generally a bad mix of classes/characters at the table. Most recent example, party of 5 Rogue (spent most of his time on a flying carpet, dealing next to no damage), Barbarian, Rogue, Monk, Gunslinger. Best chance of using a wand was the first rogue's UMD of +5. High CHA score at the table was 10 and the only trained social skill at the table was Intimidate. They made it out alive (with one guy rocking 6 CHA damage on a 7 CHA character and significant damage), had it not been for a NAT 1 on my part I don't think they would have made it out at all. Had one player brought a different character or grabbed a pregen (most likely Seelah or Kyra) they would have had a much easier time. There are a lot of scenarios in which they may have been successful, but a more versatile party would have a better chance overall.
b) Custom Monster vastly mis-CRed or monster with deceptively low CR for actual challenge. Examples without spoilers - harpies, ghouls and cuestodaemons come to mind.
c) A bad player decision leads to an almost perfect storm of enemy advantage. Most recent example. In a 7-11, 6 players 5 11's and an 8 (bard). Make it through the entire scenario with relative ease until the final boss. Make it to boss and arrange themselves with ample opportunity to prepare/pre-buff. Player 1 suggests prebuffing, Player 2 suggests checking on the McGuffin to see just how hard it's going to be. Player 3 follows Player 2's idea. Turns out it was pretty easy. Combat begins instantly with the players in really bad shape. Fight ended with 1 player dead (twice - Breath of Life), 2 players each at 1 HP, 1 player at 17 or so HP, and the last player at 52 or so. They made some good tactical decisions after the first round and earlier in the scenario that helped them a lot, but it was still 1 or so round from a TPK. Had they pre-buffed there likely would have been some damage done to them, but not nearly so much and it probably would have saved the Bard's lives. (As a note I've seen the same boss killed in a single round by a different party)
I don't think I'm a killer GM in fact of 130+ tables I've outright killed less than 10 characters (and I think less than 5 even), but sometimes a TPK can be a good learning experience (and even a cool story later at times)
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Regarding fake CR: sometimes you get a monster built from stacking class levels on a monster, adding some templates, and by the books it'd be a CR X, but if you look at the resulting stats it's closer to CR +3 or so.
Ghasts with class levels in particular. They get an advanced template from being a ghast, another stat bump from having PC levels, and PC levels. That tends to result in each stat being so high that this monster gets big bonuses on saving throws and (touch) AC, making it extremely hard to land anything on it. And then you get the synergy between higher to-hit, damage and paralysis DC on the three natural weapons, plus the increased chance of doing sneak attack damage during a full attack if one of the first attacks paralyzes.
I would really recommend mr. Compton to look more at the stats as compared to Bestiary benchmarks and less at the nominal CR increase of the templates when determining the CR of such monsters...
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The closest I've seen to a TPK has happened twice.
Once where the party stepped into an encounter that was very much a deathtrap and only realized it half-way through.
Thankfully, BoL saved two of the members long enough to finish the encounter but one of the ones saved ended up dropping again.
And they were stubbornly insistent on 'eating their own res costs' as 'they'd done something monumentally stupid to earn them'.
The other time was in a scenario that 'locks the characters in'. My character (playing 'up' in a low tier) was scouting ahead for the party and then proceeded to trigger a box-text encounter and went down in one round to prison-love from a bunch of undead of the (seemingly) non-infectious variety.
Thankfully someone had planned ahead for that kind of contingency, but it was a bit jarring.
Also used that as a very good rationale to apply a recent boon to the character.
Venture-Captain, Germany—Rhein Main South
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I had 14 kills in my over 290 Tables of Credit.
One of them was a "real" TPK, which resulted out of a combination of barely playing up (and the highest levelled chars were ... let´s call it absolutely underoptimized) They got nearly killed in the first encounter and after that, they tried to complete the scenario even after many offerings to run away. The Boss did not even take 1 point of damage.
An other table which was a TPF (Total Party Fail) was in a pregenspecial where they tried their hardest to NOT take the one Character the scenario urges you to take...
All other kills can be traced down to lucky crits, obscenely cruel tactics and players telling the GM: "I have enough HP (45 with a lv 8 Char)-> i stand in the backline and no one will attack me."
I GMed some of the so-called deadliest scenarios and the groups did not even have big problems because they knew their characters and used every option at their disposal. So I think it is entirely possible to prevent TPKs if you have a Character that has not only invested in offence but also a little bit of defence (HP=10*lv and lowest save=lv seems to be a good baseline)
Also the deadliness goes down the better the group knows each others characters.
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8
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Reading peoples reactions to TPKs is interesting to me. And I think it has to do a lot with your philosophies around character death. For me, and some of the locals here (especially the ones I do home games with as well), character death is just something to be expected in a way. As a player, you do your best to avoid it, delay it, or negate it, but having your character die is just a facet of the game. Not an ideal one of course, but a real one regardless.
Having a more positive outlook on character death can be beneficial when coping with the loss of something you've invested so much time and effort into. Assuming the death wasn't GM error, I cope with the loss of my characters by first wondering how I died. Was it my error, was it a teammates, was it just bad dice rolls? How could I have avoided it? Was it shadows? What things should I do next time to prevent it from happening? And then if I can't be resurrected and start to get bummed out, I remember that my character's untimely end is just the final chapter of their story. That doesn't mean I'm not going to talk about them to my friends, on the contrary they'll probably come up in conversation more. I could also make a new PC that's connected to the dead one, so I could continue that story arc. "I must find the six fingered man," kinda style.
But ultimately, we make PC death something to laugh at around here. Not mocking the player, but just the situation. A kind of "you died, it happens. Look at how many times we've died. It's how the game is. Lets make you something else."
At our LGS we actually have a stack of character sheets from dead PCs. The process began two years ago and it's probably up to about 30+ characters at this point (more than a few of those are mine). It's become something of a local ritual. When a character true dies (no way to recover), we think of what Pathfinder god would be appeased at their sacrifice, and sharpie their name onto the sheet in all caps. Like when my poor cleric fell off a bridge and drowned, we wrote "HANSPUR IS APPEASED" to commemorate the event. It sucked for that PC, but damn is it a good story to share.
A couple weeks ago my character in Strange Aeons went from full HP to true dead before the party got to act. Sometimes s%@% happens, whatcha gonna do? Sometimes you get wrecked. TPKs are the worst of it, but can make for some of the best stories.
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I had 14 kills in my over 290 Tables of Credit.
One of them was a "real" TPK, which resulted out of a combination of barely playing up (and the highest levelled chars were ... let´s call it absolutely underoptimized) They got nearly killed in the first encounter and after that, they tried to complete the scenario even after many offerings to run away. The Boss did not even take 1 point of damage.An other table which was a TPF (Total Party Fail) was in a pregenspecial where they tried their hardest to NOT take the one Character the scenario urges you to take...
All other kills can be traced down to lucky crits, obscenely cruel tactics and players telling the GM: "I have enough HP (45 with a lv 8 Char)-> i stand in the backline and no one will attack me."
I GMed some of the so-called deadliest scenarios and the groups did not even have big problems because they knew their characters and used every option at their disposal. So I think it is entirely possible to prevent TPKs if you have a Character that has not only invested in offence but also a little bit of defence (HP=10*lv and lowest save=lv seems to be a good baseline)
Also the deadliness goes down the better the group knows each others characters.
OMG. You actually track how many PC's you've killed?
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Venture-Agent, Massachusetts—Boston Metro
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That would wreck my L11 Bard if it hit max damage, so that's not too far-fetched.
My most recent kill in a PFS scenario, funny enough, was due to playing up...but it was the level 5 in a high tier 5-9 eating 16d6 fire damage in round one.
That's one of the scenarios (If it is what I think it is) you have to be careful running because I don't think the tactics actually supported what he did. Namely because the 16d6 worth of fire damage is the same in the low tier as it is in the high.
EDIT:Then again reading the tactics its arguably worst if you follow them. 16d6+18 with a really high chance to crit.
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Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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OMG. You actually track how many PC's you've killed?I had 14 kills in my over 290 Tables of Credit.
One of them was a "real" TPK, which resulted out of a combination of barely playing up (and the highest levelled chars were ... let´s call it absolutely underoptimized) They got nearly killed in the first encounter and after that, they tried to complete the scenario even after many offerings to run away. The Boss did not even take 1 point of damage.An other table which was a TPF (Total Party Fail) was in a pregenspecial where they tried their hardest to NOT take the one Character the scenario urges you to take...
All other kills can be traced down to lucky crits, obscenely cruel tactics and players telling the GM: "I have enough HP (45 with a lv 8 Char)-> i stand in the backline and no one will attack me."
I GMed some of the so-called deadliest scenarios and the groups did not even have big problems because they knew their characters and used every option at their disposal. So I think it is entirely possible to prevent TPKs if you have a Character that has not only invested in offence but also a little bit of defence (HP=10*lv and lowest save=lv seems to be a good baseline)
Also the deadliness goes down the better the group knows each others characters.
He even writes the names inside his GM screen... the really shocking question is when he ran his first PFS game ^^
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Sammy, that is a really cool guide. I would like to distribute it locally, but you might want to add your name so that you get credit.
Take-away: Because my lodge at the time had multiple folks leveling up characters to higher tiers, I wrote a guide on things they should keep in mind.
Hahaha, thanks Jared. I've switched computers and lost the original file since then, so only the PDF remains. If I ever do a 2.0 version, I'll add my name. Until then feel free to distribute it as is ;)
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Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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I feel like it's too late to go back now and start compiling a list of PCs I've "overseen the death of". Besides, I don't normally use a GM screen.
Hmm. Maybe I should have one. For special occasions.
*wanders off thinking Blackadder things*
I also tend not to use a GM screen ^^
Just remember that Baldric is to blame ^^
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I've killed 4 PCs in 84 tables as a PFS GM. Two of them were permanent deaths in level 1 replayable scenarios, and the other two were in The Dalsine Affair.
All of them were caused by melee crits. Two of them were from taking two attacks in the same round, where the first got the PC down to 1 or 3 HP, and the second shot was the crit. In two of them, it was the first round of the fight against a PC that hadn't acted yet.
Only one of them was even remotely the player's fault: The level 1 pregen wizard tried to acrobatics past a barbarian with a greataxe and took a crit to the face.
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Yeah, I don't bother much remembering the total. I remember memorable ones, like my first permanent kill in my 60th table, where the 1st level rogue with the 10 Con was the only target. Or when the 2nd level character in Confirmation took an AoO on the way in but didn't drop, and then the attack on the creatures turn put him past neg Con.
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Venture-Captain, Germany—Rhein Main South
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OMG. You actually track how many PC's you've killed?
Yes, I have a "Wall of Names" inside my GM-Screen -> The name and the scenario number.
Started with it because the first one was at my 4* table and followed the tradition since. Some players try to remind me that they are already on there if I need to decide who the T-Rex will eat^^|
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4-26 The Waking Rune: Didn't know there was anything special about this scenario, not sure if the other players at the table knew there was something special about this scenario. We were not prepared... My character plane shifted away when he was the last one standing.Haven't played it yet, but I think that scenario would call for me releasing thekrakenAPG summoner who blows through scrolls of Evolution Surge/Greater Evolution Surge like candy.
Sad to say that will not necessarily help you, at all. My only played TPK (kinda, one guy got away) was in that very scenario. I'll spare spoiling it, but despite all of us having particularly strong builds, our GM was crafty and we, foolishly, opted for hard mode.
-note-
The changes due to hard mode actually wasn't even what killed us, we did fine against those.
While not a TPK, there was a player death that was of particular amazement for me. We were in a crowd of people, waiting for an ambush we knew was going to happen. A few of us were hidden, a few of us in the crowd. The ambush occurs, and we're all trying to find where a specific pair of arrows came from, but came up with nothing. The next round our level 8 paladin (88hp) went from full health to -71 and nobody saw where it came from. The rogue spotted the attacker the following round, and the immediate area got hammered so hard I'd wager the stain was still there where it not for the extensive damages to the building.
I'd never seen someone get turned into a fine red mist like that before. o_o
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That would wreck my L11 Bard if it hit max damage, so that's not too far-fetched.
My most recent kill in a PFS scenario, funny enough, was due to playing up...but it was the level 5 in a high tier 5-9 eating 16d6 fire damage in round one.That's one of the scenarios (If it is what I think it is) you have to be careful running because I don't think the tactics actually supported what he did. Namely because the 16d6 worth of fire damage is the same in the low tier as it is in the high.
EDIT:
Then again reading the tactics its arguably worst if you follow them. 16d6+18 with a really high chance to crit.
with its breath weapon, attempting to get as many
targets as possible within the two cones. On rounds when
it cannot use its breath weapon, the edavagor wades
fearlessly into the largest mass of enemies it can
reach, using its size and many attacks to deal
damage to as many creatures as possible
each round.
Special Attacks breath weapon (2 30-ft. cones, 8d6 fire damage
plus spoor worm, Reflex DC 24 half, usable every 1d4 rounds)
It's exactly what the creature is supposed to do. I also had the pleasure of telling a swashbuckler that he failed to parry repeatedly.
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Venture-Agent, Massachusetts—Boston Metro
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That would wreck my L11 Bard if it hit max damage, so that's not too far-fetched.
My most recent kill in a PFS scenario, funny enough, was due to playing up...but it was the level 5 in a high tier 5-9 eating 16d6 fire damage in round one.That's one of the scenarios (If it is what I think it is) you have to be careful running because I don't think the tactics actually supported what he did. Namely because the 16d6 worth of fire damage is the same in the low tier as it is in the high.
EDIT:
Then again reading the tactics its arguably worst if you follow them. 16d6+18 with a really high chance to crit.** spoiler omitted **
It's exactly what the creature is supposed to do. I also had the pleasure of telling a swashbuckler that he failed to parry repeatedly.
Huh... They doesn't seem as bad as what I was thinking.
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So I think it is entirely possible to prevent TPKs if you have a Character that has not only invested in offence but also a little bit of defence (HP=10*lv and lowest save=lv seems to be a good baseline)
Also the deadliness goes down the better the group knows each others characters.
It's exceptionally difficult to get 110HP on my d8-bearing L11 *BARD*. Getting a belt to get him some CON got him to 69...
How do you get 10*lv?
Also, lowest save is +10 on Fort/Will (with a bunch of situational modifiers)... It'd be kind of cost prohibitive to go to a +4 Cloak of Resistance atm?
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I've GMed just one TPK in 130+ tables of credit, last month when I ran Master of the Fallen Fortress for four brand-new characters (a fighter, investigator, monk, and sorcerer). They had no healing whatsoever. Even with repeated prolonged rests between encounters to wait out status effects, and a trip back to town to rest for the night and resupply, selling what meager loot they found, they ended up essentially barricading themselves into a room with enemies that proceeded to wipe them out.
Despite the TPK, everyone at the table did have fun. They knew the writing was on the wall, but they were new characters, so the sting of their dying was not that painful.
I'm re-running Master of the Fallen Fortress in a few weeks; I'll be curious to see if any of those players sign up again to take another crack at it.
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Wei Ji:
I try and hit 10*lvl in HP. I don't always make it but I quite possibly over value HP (just like I undervalue AC)
These were my characters that it was easy to pull up data for, ans were at least level 4:
-2: Gnome Cleric 15 (202 hp)
starting con 18, +6 belt, toughness, 4 FC
-7: Tiefling Mindchemist Alchemist 10 (103 hp)
starting con 14, +4 belt, 10FC
-8: Nagaji "Paladin" Oracle 13 (146 hp)
starting con 14, +4 belt, toughness, 13 FC
-9: Tiefling Sorcerer Sorcerer 8 (82 hp)
starting con 16, +4 belt, 8 FC
-10: Aasimar Mystic Theurge 8 (71 hp)
starting con 16, +2 belt, 2 FC
-11: Gnome Champion of Irori 11 (118 hp)
starting con 16, +2 belt, toughness, 3 FC
-12: Dhampir Cleric 10 (92 hp)
starting con 12, +4 belt, toughness
-13: Ratfolk Arcanist 7 (65 hp)
starting con 16, +2 belt, 7 FC
-14: Human Slayer/Horizon Walker 9 (73 hp)
starting con 12, 6 FC
-15: Aasimar Bard 8 (72 hp)
starting con 14, toughness, 5 FC
-16: Human Fighter 13 (134 hp)
starting con 12, +4 belt, 13 FC
-17: Ifrit Time Oracle 7 (67 hp)
Starting con 15, 5 FC
-18: Gnome Summoner 4 (39 hp)
Starting con 16, 4 FC
-21: Aasimar Shaman 7 (65 hp)
Starting con 14, 7 FC
-22: Tiefling Occultist 7 (73 hp)
Starting con 14, +2 belt, toughness, 7 FC
-23: Skinwalker Unchained Barbarian 4 (50 hp)
Starting con 16, +2 wereboar, 1 FC
-24: Samsaran Witch 6 (62 hp)
Starting con 14, tribal scars, toughness, +2 belt, 6FC
-25 Human Rogue/Evangelist 8 (78 hp)
Starting con 14, Tribal Scars, Toughness, 4FC
-37 Halfling Medium 4 (31 hp)
Starting con 14
I can provide more details on various characters if you're curious.
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The next round our level 8 paladin (88hp) went from full health to -71 and nobody saw where it came from.I don't believe this is possible in that scenario unless he was crit, possibly twice.
Yeah, I'm not seeing how this happened.
The boss in that scenario has to snipe to remain stealthed and he can only first two arrows when he does so. I don't see a way for him to do 150 damage in two hits. If he full attacks only the first gets any sneak.
At Tier 7-8 the ABSOLUTE maximum he can do is 132 points of damage if he crits twice and rolls maximum on everything. Even at high level it's 166. Tier 7-8 average on a double-crit is 96 (if you were within 30' and he had the supercool item). Tier 10-11 average double-crit is 125.
I suspect someone added the "Deadly Sniper" bonus to his damage (which he shouldn't get as you are definitely aware that there is a sniper in the area before you get attacked).
Also his tactics specifically call out who he attacks first (which shouldn't have been the paladin unless she was an archer).
As an aside I ran this 4 times at GenCon and loved it. The outcomes were ones the parties will remember with both fondness and terror. No deaths but every single time the party pulled it out by the skin of their teeth. My favorite was when there was: one 11th level bloodrager unconscious (after a breath of life; one 11th level fighter archer immobile from strength damage; 11th level life oracle out of channels, 3rd, and 4th level spells, one 5th level left; 9th level mesmerist out of 2nd and 3rd level spells; and one 11th level (chained) summoner out of 3rd and 4th level spells. Eidolon finally spotted him and grappled him (winged serpent eidolon).
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I've GM'd a couple. Around the time I was made the local VC in May 2012, there were like 16 PC deaths at my tables in a couple of weeks, including two TPKs, a Masks of the Living God where one PC managed to limp away and a God's Market Gamble that saw the entire party laid low in the final encounter but only one actually died. I like to call this time the Blood Spring.
TPK 1: low-level parties are vulnerable. Low-level parties who proceed into Mists of Mwangi with four members who are all support casters die on the first encounter. I asked them if they're sure they want to play without a tank. They said yes.
TPK 2: there was a thing everyone in the party agreed was an obvious trap, after which the paladin did the "hold my beer" thing and triggered it, releasing a spider swarm. Then, a party of six characters, including a fire sorcerer, manage to roll atrociously badly on a number of attack rolls and get eaten. This was just poor tactics combined with terrible luck, vulnerable PCs, and no way to escape.
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4-26 The Waking Rune: Didn't know there was anything special about this scenario, not sure if the other players at the table knew there was something special about this scenario. We were not prepared... My character plane shifted away when he was the last one standing.Haven't played it yet, but I think that scenario would call for me releasing thekrakenAPG summoner who blows through scrolls of Evolution Surge/Greater Evolution Surge like candy.Sad to say that will not necessarily help you, at all. My only played TPK (kinda, one guy got away) was in that very scenario. I'll spare spoiling it, but despite all of us having particularly strong builds, our GM was crafty and we, foolishly, opted for hard mode.
-note-
The changes due to hard mode actually wasn't even what killed us, we did fine against those.While not a TPK, there was a player death that was of particular amazement for me. We were in a crowd of people, waiting for an ambush we knew was going to happen. A few of us were hidden, a few of us in the crowd. The ambush occurs, and we're all trying to find where a specific pair of arrows came from, but came up with nothing. The next round our level 8 paladin (88hp) went from full health to -71 and nobody saw where it came from. The rogue spotted the attacker the following round, and the immediate area got hammered so hard I'd wager the stain was still there where it not for the extensive damages to the building.
I'd never seen someone get turned into a fine red mist like that before. o_o
** spoiler omitted **
I saw that happen as my friend was running that table and knowing how deadly that BBEG was after running that scenario. After the second natural 20, I walked away cringing.
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Venture-Agent, Indiana—Lafayette
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I had one near TPK on low level characters running a module. They had a titan fighter, a saurian druid, a barbarian, and ... sigh.. the pregen skald. The were destroying everything they cam across in 1-2 rounds. No one had taken serious damage. Then they come across a swarm of flesh eating cockroaches. Only the barbarian had splash weapons and neither of the spellcasters had AoE spells.
Round 1: Titan fighter runs back around the corner, terrified. Barbarian throws acid and hits. Swarm moves onto druid and his raptor. Both fail fort saves. Druid 5 foots out and tries a spell. Spell does nothing. Skald sings.
Round 2: Titan fighter does nothing. Barbarian moves and throws and alchemist fire. Direct hit. Swarm moves back onto druid and raptor. Druid and fails save, raptor makes his. Druid can't 5 foot out, so tries to heal himself. Spell fizzles. Raptor is told to run down hall. Skald runs into swarm to try to save druid. Spell fizzles.
Round 3: Fighter starts running back to entrance. Barbarian throws another alchemist fire, misses and splashes swarm and druid. Swarm stays put and munches on druid. Druid drops. Raptor follows last command and runs further down the unexplored hall. Skald retreats.
Round 4: Having nothing to damage the swarm fighter continues his flight from danger. Barbarian finishes off the swarm with final acid flask. Raptor finds another monster and flees back the way it came.
So, they all manage to flee the new enemy, with the barbarian carrying the druid. We take lunch to regroup. I tell them they can reequip in town and head back in after we eat. Only one player returns that day, with the druid's player never returning to play again. I felt bad for the barbarian because they got less than half way through the module and so he got very little for his trouble.
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I've GMed just one TPK in 130+ tables of credit, last month when I ran Master of the Fallen Fortress for four brand-new characters (a fighter, investigator, monk, and sorcerer). They had no healing whatsoever. Even with repeated prolonged rests between encounters to wait out status effects, and a trip back to town to rest for the night and resupply, selling what meager loot they found, they ended up essentially barricading themselves into a room with enemies that proceeded to wipe them out.
Despite the TPK, everyone at the table did have fun. They knew the writing was on the wall, but they were new characters, so the sting of their dying was not that painful.
I'm re-running Master of the Fallen Fortress in a few weeks; I'll be curious to see if any of those players sign up again to take another crack at it.
Interestingly, this happened at our lodge last month as well on the same scenario. Not sure what the party make up was as I was sitting at a table near by, but it was all fresh level 1's with no healer or wands.
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The next round our level 8 paladin (88hp) went from full health to -71 and nobody saw where it came from.I don't believe this is possible in that scenario unless he was crit, possibly twice.Yeah, I'm not seeing how this happened.
** spoiler omitted **
I had a miserable time playing this scenario, which led to my putting a GM on my avoid list. Not a TPK, but a complete scenario failure, for a party that should actually have been able to handle this pretty well. I have a high-level sniper, so I know countermeasures, and when shenanigans are being pulled.
Having said that, sniping is pretty rare in PFS, so my experience is a lot of people don't know the rules for it that well, and I suspect the scenario didn't clearly explain some things, assuming a higher level of rules knowledge.
The funny part -- I was playing a monk who had just a few scenarios earlier trained out of Deflect Arrows, due to never having been targeted by a ranged weapon. Oh well...
ETA: My actual problems with the GM were not from this encounter.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I had one near TPK on low level characters running a module. They had a titan fighter, a saurian druid, a barbarian, and ... sigh.. the pregen skald. The were destroying everything they cam across in 1-2 rounds. No one had taken serious damage. Then they come across a swarm of flesh eating cockroaches. Only the barbarian had splash weapons and neither of the spellcasters had AoE spells.
Round 1: Titan fighter runs back around the corner, terrified. Barbarian throws acid and hits. Swarm moves onto druid and his raptor. Both fail fort saves. Druid 5 foots out and tries a spell. Spell does nothing. Skald sings.
Round 2: Titan fighter does nothing. Barbarian moves and throws and alchemist fire. Direct hit. Swarm moves back onto druid and raptor. Druid and fails save, raptor makes his. Druid can't 5 foot out, so tries to heal himself. Spell fizzles. Raptor is told to run down hall. Skald runs into swarm to try to save druid. Spell fizzles.
Round 3: Fighter starts running back to entrance. Barbarian throws another alchemist fire, misses and splashes swarm and druid. Swarm stays put and munches on druid. Druid drops. Raptor follows last command and runs further down the unexplored hall. Skald retreats.
Round 4: Having nothing to damage the swarm fighter continues his flight from danger. Barbarian finishes off the swarm with final acid flask. Raptor finds another monster and flees back the way it came.So, they all manage to flee the new enemy, with the barbarian carrying the druid. We take lunch to regroup. I tell them they can reequip in town and head back in after we eat. Only one player returns that day, with the druid's player never returning to play again. I felt bad for the barbarian because they got less than half way through the module and so he got very little for his trouble.
Why was the druid 5-ft-ing? Swarms normally have 0ft reach so they can't make AoOs.
It's relatively easy to just scatter and ensure a swarm never gets more than one character to munch on at the same time.