Venture-Lieutenant, Maryland—Hagerstown
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I have my deaths on a GM screen in silver marker. A skull and cross bones and a tally for each. It is a joke at my local lodge and only bring it out on the scenarios where I think a death is a real outcome.I can only imagine what is said about you.
What? That I am actually a nice guy and do not intentionally go after the players. I play RAW and do not fudge dice rolls. The only "kills" I have is from critical hits at the wrong time or bad player judgement, such as "I am going to do flurry of blows on a the burning skeleton", I even followed up with "Is that what you really want to do? Ok?".
And if they decide that they want to talk or think bad thoughts about me behind my back, instead of coming to me with a problem or concern. That shows lack of character on their behalf not mine.
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16
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Outside of during the vigilante playtest, where we experimented with a number of all vigilante tables and tried to put them through different scenarios, I've never had a TPK at a table I've played or GM'd. (The vigilante playtest had 2 or 3 TPK's that were PFS, and probably half a dozen non-PFS, even if we ran PFS scenarios for those.)
First, it saddens me to see how many people quote needing optimized characters. I find nothing more boring as a GM or a player than sitting down at table full of hyper-optimized characters. When the scenario was already won at character creation, it's not as fun to play the scenario. As a player, I actually would not play at tables with some characters. As a GM, I sometimes wished I could just hand out the chronicle sheets when we sat down, because I knew how everything would play out. (When the enemies would be shut down on round 1 of every encounter with a 1/400 chance of it not working, and it was almost a guarantee the players would get this off first every time, nothing resembling a challenge will come of it.)
Back to TPK's...
We've actually had a number of TPK's and near TPK's recently.
1) Quests - We ran a convention of 2 days of nothing but quests and evergreens, and two quests became problematic causing TPK's and near TPK's. One involved a mold that cast dominate person on the party barbarian (who was very optimizated for dps and nothing else, and quickly slaughtered the party) and the second involves a druid with a killer companion that doesn't really get reflected well in CR1 encounters.
2) Tome of the Righteous Repose - I love this scenario, as do most of the players in my area. However, this one has quickly gained a reputation in my area for character deaths. It has probably caused more deaths than any other scenario or mod. (Being evergreen helps with that, as people can try again and die again with another character.) 75% of the time, everything goes good for the PC's, but that other 25% usually goes very bad...and we have run A LOT of tables of this.
Although it wasn't a TPK, the most memorable kills I had were in an adventure where I could see what the results were going to be, felt horrible about it, and watched it go down as predicted. This was completely due to the party. 3 of the six characters hid from the BBEG, leaving the other 3 to die. The encounter would have been challenging, but shouldn't have killed anyone if everyone worked together, but a mix of greed and bad tactics doomed half the party.
On my character deaths...I can blame all 4 on being too heroic.
Death 1: A sorcerer was prone and barely conscious, with a mook standing over him and the BBEG about to charge. I stepped in to block the charge lane with my bard, and dispatched the mook. One 43 pt charge crit later, and my level 2 bard went from full to dead. (It let the sorcerer get off a spell to save the rest of the party.
Death 2: Party was ambushed in water. I saved 3 people from drowning, risking AoO's, dragging them to safety, healing with a wand to prevent unconsciousness in water... then when I finally went down, the rest of the party left me to drown. Of the 3 deaths, this is the one I regret, because being heroic wasn't really in the character's DNA, and I did it more out of character. I'm happy with heroes dying a heroic death. Not as happy with my backstabbing thief dying a heroic death because I as a player would have felt bad letting my party die.
Death 3: This one isn't permadeath (I paid for a raise), but is very similar to the first death. I stepped into the charge lane with my ranger/rogue to prevent a skeletal mammoth and it's rider from getting to our wizard. Some hot dice and ridiculous damage ended in me getting crit to death.
Death 4: I said the position of the fight was terrible for us, and we should draw in the creature. Some of the party charged anyway. I felt our only chance was to do enough damage to end the fight before it could attack. I charged too. I got an awesome blow off a bridge into a river of molten gold for 20d6 damage per round at level 4, proving me right that the location was bad for us. Party ended up doing enough damage just after that.
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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 **
It was a double crit. My interpretation of the 2 stealth shots was that both got the SA damage because the feat that grants the ability to get that damage on both because you're considered hidden for both (thus overriding the normal rule), but there could have been a miss-play as I haven't looked terribly close at the setup. Either way, the paladin got crit-hit twice by this guy, so he still would have been absolutely flattened.
After that first round he hit/crit someone else and took them to 3HP, but they spotted him and he got hammered, so it didn't last too long. Everything else got flattened pretty quick. I was just floored with how much damage came out of that setup.
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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 **
It was a double crit. My interpretation of the 2 stealth shots was that both got the SA damage because the feat that grants the ability to get that damage on both because you're considered hidden for both (thus overriding the normal rule), but there could have been a miss-play as I haven't looked terribly close at the setup. Either way, the paladin got crit-hit twice by this guy, so he still would have been absolutely flattened.
After that first round he hit/crit someone else and took them to 3HP, but they spotted him and he got hammered, so it didn't last too long. Everything else got flattened pretty quick. I was just floored with how much damage came out of that setup.
Yeah, he should get sneak attack damage on both shots (though that doesn't multiply on a crit). Two crits would likely have killed the paladin outright in high tier and had a fair chance to do so in low tier. But if that 159 hp swing is correct I suspect something got multiplied wrong.
He is one of my favorite-built NPCs in a long time. And he's not even completely optimized. We discussed him after finishing a runthrough and one player was in awe of his abilities. I said "let me make these three changes and watch what happens." Nervous gulps all around.
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wasnt a TPK per se but the only time i've ever lost a character permanently, was a 1-2 module and colorspray was involved. i dont own the module but that shouldnt be allowed in a 1-2 in hindsight so i wonder if it was ran wrong.
In the Godsmouth Heresy, i was involved in a homegame TPK due to an enemy's tactics.
A giant "skeletal" snake [was really a construct] that Dazed two of the four party for several rounds, then it's attacks would paralyze for minutes.My character- a brawler- survived long enough to see the two Dazed characters- a fighter and a witch- come out of their dazed states, only to get paralyzed.
The CR of this monster was woefully underwritten, especially for a supposed party of lvl 1's, especially when it's save DC's were low-teens.
It was a somber next few minutes while we decided if we wanted to restart or run a different module.
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I don't disagree with you completely, Serisan, but party wide save or die effects in tier 1-2 seems like a bit much to me. Especially in that module. I was part of a TPK during that specific fight. We had managed to make it to the BBEG before hitting this thing, so we had already expended a fair bit and this thing finished us off pretty quickly due to bad saves.
Come to think of it, I was part of another TPK at level one, due to a color spray. Not everyone failed, but at that point we were badly out-actioned, which is no good at level one.
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Yeah, that one room in Godsmouth Heresy is definitely a potential TPK maker. I disagree about that enemy being appropriate CR for the adventure. The difficulty of that is on par with a CR 4 encounter, which is too much to throw at level 1 PCs.
When I played that one, we had a master summoner (before the archetype and APG summoners were banned) who just kept throwing ponies at it. Using My Little Pony toys as miniatures. It was hilarious, and not the least bit scary.
The one time I GMed that module, the group actually skipped that encounter with a good knowledge: metagame roll. Two of my players had played the module before and intentionally rushed to the other side of that room and left before the monster came in (since it doesn't arrive from the outside for 3 or 4 rounds). I didn't realize until later that they did this intentionally due to their prior knowledge of the adventure.
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Also, it's damage can outright kill low level PCs with it's 1d8+3 bite.
Then comes the kicker of having to fight the Iron Cobra at the bottom to get at the loot.
When I played that one, we had a master summoner (before the archetype and APG summoners were banned) who just kept throwing ponies at it. Using My Little Pony toys as miniatures. It was hilarious, and not the least bit scary.
Reminds me of a near TPK in an early floor of the Emerald Spire; it came down to the Bard casting Summon Nature's Ally to distract a construct while he tried to revive the rest of the party.
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I've yet to run a tpk, but there have been two very close calls. Naturally, those two were in Six Seconds to TPK and in TPK from the Sands!
In my 106 credits, I think I've killed 16 characters, 2 familiars, 6 animal companions and one shadowdancer's shadow. Life's cheap, particularily versus mummies.
On the side of the players, one particularily BS adventure comes to mind. It wasn't a tpk at all, but we had to struggle through aquatic power attack constrict monsters, wights, swarms, advanced necrophidii, a large air elemental and a caster summoning orcas. It was just pure de Sade all around. Sometimes on water.
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** spoiler omitted **
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Out of 125+ PFS games and 2 APs worth of home gaming, I've only killed a handful of people. One was a Battle Oracle that was just unlucky and got boxed into a corner by a clockwork soldier. Another was a summoner that committed the one big no-no for that class - he won initiative, went first, and walked further into an unexplored room while his eidolon waited for his turn in the back. Summoner got critically hit and tripped, then hit again for max damage the next round. My most recent was Deep Market Deception. No spoilers, but the fight right before the BBEG fight? I killed a Barbarian that was linked to a Life Oracle. My GM dice were on fire for that fight and that made a huge difference.
The funniest was my wife in Crypt of the Everflame running up to heroically throw a flask of alchemical fire....and drawing an AoO from the Large monster that crit her already wounded level 1 Slayer for almost 30 damage. Ouch. She actually doesn't hold this against me, I think she realized that it was a very heroic, but very stupid, thing to do. Plus, it's only a level 1 PFS character, just build another...
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1. Techinical Ko - party runs out of alchemy, and leaves failing the mission. We had plenty of alchemy but high touch and lots of 1-5's dont mix.
2. Everyone dies - when my magus rogue is the only capable "tank" on waking rune. We got close, but not enough to win.
3. Level 3's vs. Babau, no darkvision. DM was rolling hot too on crits.
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Bonekeep 2 - Certain room where will saves ruined our winning streak.. first time I had to "rescue" my fighter...
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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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.
The guide Sammy linked above seems to have gone away. I don't suppose anyone kept a copy?
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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Someone sent me an updated link:
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Yes immunities can be tough. I was at second level with several level 1 charcters in a season zero scenario that players at another table ended up thinking how!
4 characters. I was level two as an arcanist. I really end up preparing the wrong spells as I choose thunderstomp and colorspray.
What ended up happening is a crit one hit a kyra iconic. One undead skeleton wins initiative takes down kyra iconic in one hit on the first combat. I trip the ghoul as I know full attacks + paralysis are not fun to be around. A najagi druid ended up getting paralzed on a bad fort save by the ghoul after it got up so only me and the samurai where up. then the samuai was down and I was acid splashing 4 undead by myself as I did not have a way to defeat the undead by myself. I kind of am kicking myself for not preparing burning hands with potent magic I could have had 4d4 fire damage at level 2 by burning an arcane pool point.
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I've had a couple of kills, but I had 1 really tough TPK that hurt to play out.
Season 6 numerical exhibition. Party consisted of a Monk, a paladin who's player was A.) still learning and B.) Super weak mechanically, a "Jack of all trades" character with focus on knowledge skills, and a sorcerer who focused on mind enchantments and non-lethal damage, and something else I can't remember, but another low damage output.
I was worried the boss might kill them. Instead, the two gear men at the front entrance TPK'd them. When they decided to run away, they ran away DEEPER into the museum, and right into the line of fire of the sniper in the next room, splitting the party so the gear men killed the two who stayed back to "Hold the line" while the other to ran in and got sniper shot to death. I even had the sniper take pot shots at the gearman when they came in to give them a chance to run, but they didn't take it until finally they where all dead.
Did have sort of a happy ending though, two people didn't care about reviving their characters since they where -12+ experimental ideas and so they pooled there spare gold together to pay for the newbie's negative levels so she didn't feel so bad about the TPK and just let their guys perma die.