Now first and foremost i'm not regretting my party's death as i think a game early ending is only an excuse to start another one. IMO death should happens in combat centric rpgs as it would get dull otherwise. That being said i don't recall having TPKed any party before in 12 years of DMing, i did kill some players, but never a whole party.
My party consisted of five level 4 properly optimized characters:
- Vesk Blitz Soldier
- Android Operative
- Ysoki Sharpshooter Soldier. He was mechanically the weakest character, but the guys had some good ideas from times to time, and some less good ideas, but we'll get to that later.
- Android Technomancer fighting with a sniper.
- Drow Envoy3/Blitz Soldier 1 (Npc)
So, now the interesting part. How did it happen?
After a 12 days treck throught the jungle, The party arrived at the Temple of the Twelves Suns. The first combat went without a sweat they totally exploded the fight against the mountain Eel with two critical hits one from the Vesk and one from the Sniper.
Then they climbed the remaining of the stairs and met Panneliar who kindly but firmly asked them to turn away. The Drow envoy asked him if he saw the cultist and he replied that they were in the temple thanks to the leader strong conviction and magic. The Drow tried to negotiate with him, telling him they could get rid of the cultist if he'd let them into the temple, but he refused, thanks to the mind control magic. So the vesk lost his patience and drew his sword and the fight started.
The Ysoki player had in mind that he guardian could not enter the temple, which is false, but imo it was still a good guess. So they asked the Vesk to try and grapple him so they could enter the temple. One the vesk saw the Solarian guardian set himself on fire he gave up that idea and so the party fought the guardian. But they rolled really poorly and the Solarian rolled above average and got the Vesk soldier down in two turn. Then it started to go downhill, players had rotten luck, but eventually with their resolve they could have gone throught it. But the Ysoki still believe the guardian couldn't set foot inside and so he threw a sticky grenade on the guardian to entangle him and to my great surprised it worked.
Then the operative went and opened the door just to meet with Avissa and her 3 cultist goons. So couple of checks later they are all down, they managed to get the guardian down, and only Avissa and an injured cultist are still up. 2 players couldn't stabilize because of the cultist bleeding effect and then the cultist started to Coup de Grace everybody once and they died of bleeding.
Guess it was a bit anti-climatic as they didn't even get to see Tahomen, but it happens. So all why i'm i telling you all of this? Just so you can take things into consideration when running the AP if you wanna avoid my party's fate.
- The Cultist are a bunch of chaotic evils lunatics workshipping the God of the end-times, they got nothing to lose and will fight dirty, take the opportunity to kill someones if they have it.
- The cultist bleeding effect is nastier than i originally thought and without any form of magical healing/Serum it can get nasty. Beside my party partly died because of this, as they couldn't get back up.
-Fighting Panneliar in melee is a bad idea, i tried to give them multiple cues but they didn't really listen.
- Althought the mystic wasn't necessary, i think it could have saved my party as the Envoy Stam healing can't keep a party member sustaining heavy damage.
-Bad luck in starfinder seems to be deadlier than it was in pathfinder.
- Crits are monstrous, the double damage on a 20 makes combat so shifty and that's generally to the player disadvantage, because they are bound to get critted someday.
Anyway, i wish you luck and fun in your AP, that's where mine stop.
Then the operative went and opened the door just to meet with Avissa and her 3 cultist goons.
What were they doing there?
"Once the cultists hear the
PCs enter the temple, they prepare for a
fight, talking cover wherever they can find it."
They should've waited at C5 to ambush the PCs, or in the very least show up after Panneliar is dead and the party is trying to rest, to see why the fighting stopped.
And it was supposed to be 2 goons with her, did you give her another one because the party has 5 people?
In your place, I'd have stopped the bleeding and tied them up with Solstarni inside the temple, have Tahomen show up for a evil villain speach, and blow up the place with them inside. Whoever survives, gets to chase after the cultists. Very dramatic, and at least gave them a chance.
I'd also make them roll the damage for their characters, for that extra twist of the knife.
What were they doing there?
"Once the cultists hear the
PCs enter the temple, they prepare for a
fight, talking cover wherever they can find it."
C5 is right next to C5, there was direct line of sight, and a gun fight with grenade, explosion and magic isn't the most discreet thing either.
They should've waited at C5 to ambush the PCs, or in the very least show up after Panneliar is dead and the party is trying to rest, to see why the fighting stopped.
They would have but the technomancer walked right into the temple. I haven't mentionned that before, my bad. So basically what happened when they opened the door the cultist rolled for initiative and played later in the round. The party still had the idea to sneak inside up until the vesk player made them change their mind, but that was after the technomancer got inside. The operative closed the door back, but the technomancer got trapped inside with two cultist and Avissa, the last one went for the door as they saw the party where in really bad shape.
And it was supposed to be 2 goons with her, did you give her another one because the party has 5 people?
Yup, because there was five character I've added a CR 1 cultist in almost every fight against the cult.
In your place, I'd have stopped the bleeding and tied them up with Solstarni inside the temple, have Tahomen show up for a evil villain speach, and blow up the place with them inside. Whoever survives, gets to chase after the cultists. Very dramatic, and at least gave them a chance.
I guess i could have, but we were taking a break after this module no matter what anyway and due to lack of better time we had to play in the morning and a player was moody an groogy and everyone just kinda let their arm down and said '' Meh, screw it were dead.'' So i said yeah alright, those guys finish you off and you die bleeding.
I'd also make them roll the damage for their characters, for that extra twist of the knife.
Now that's just evil, i love it :)
the ghoul elf dude did a number on our party, but the cultists were plagued by a series of horrifically poor roles on our DMs part, and we cut through them like butter.
the answer: NEXT TIME get a Solarian.
Yeah he's nasty, but i don't know if Solarian can really hold up, i mean NPCs get increased attack and damage.
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Yeah he's nasty, but i don't know if Solarian can really hold up, i mean NPCs get increased attack and damage.the ghoul elf dude did a number on our party, but the cultists were plagued by a series of horrifically poor roles on our DMs part, and we cut through them like butter.
the answer: NEXT TIME get a Solarian.
the solarian can deal melee damage and keep the bad guy from the ranged characters who can pile it on even more.
the elf dude is a beast, but a well-managed party can put him down.
you did the right thing. that was an earned TPK.
the solarian can deal melee damage and keep the bad guy from the ranged characters who can pile it on even more.
the elf dude is a beast, but a well-managed party can put him down.
Yeah most definitely, and they would had succeeded, at the cost of a couple of Resolve, but they did the opposite of focusing, they went on grabbing more enemies and that's generally a bad idea in every possible game from tabletop to MMOs, you simply don't start running forward in a dungeon. The Ysoki's player reasoning wasn't completely irrational, as it did made sense, but it was a bit of a stretch as i never said he couldn't enter the temple.
you did the right thing. that was an earned TPK.
Well if they had only lost the fight against the gardian, he would probably had let them go, telling them to never comeback, but they did a bad move and suffered the consequence. Earned or not, i just went with what i felt was logical. Beside, like i already mention my Players kind let their arms down at the end.
Anyway, thanks for the input :)
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Yeah most definitely, and they would had succeeded, at the cost of a couple of Resolve, but they did the opposite of focusing, they went on grabbing more enemies and that's generally a bad idea in every possible game from tabletop to MMOs, you simply don't start running forward in a dungeon.
You should get your party a copy of XCOM 2. They'll quickly learn to never aggro multiple pods of enemies at once if they want to live. ;)
You should get your party a copy of XCOM 2. They'll quickly learn to never aggro multiple pods of enemies at once if they want to live. ;)
I haven't played myself, but i've seen the Vesk Soldier player rage enough on that game, that i get what you mean :P
I had a similar scenario in AP3:
** spoiler omitted **
That's clever. Personally i might have went with my players ideas, because Tahomen cause had ordered him to stay outside the temple, and it wasn't such a wild guess, but they didn't stick to their plan, got separated, half the player where down outside, the technomancer was getting slice into spare parts, and so they just got themselves killed.
Somehow we ended up chatting with that undead Elf while staying outside of the temple‘s limits. We went all „Oh sure, sir! We gonna stay outside sir!“. Not sure why/how but he then let drop that the cultist boss went up the mountain with others, so we ended up skipping the temple ar first and chased after „Paqual“ whom we ended up ambushing on his way down.
Not sure if the GM just let that info slipout inadvertently or because the Envoy made a silly high Diplo roll. On our way back the undead Elf was not dominated anymore and all friendly. He thanked us for freeing him of the cultist‘s leader control and helped us a bit.
On our way back the undead Elf was not dominated anymore and all friendly. He thanked us for freeing him of the cultist‘s leader control and helped us a bit.
I don't think that was supposed to happen.
Once the spell was successfully cast, and it doesn't require concentration to maintain, I believe it should have lasted its whole duration.
On our way back the undead Elf was not dominated anymore and all friendly. He thanked us for freeing him of the cultist‘s leader control and helped us a bit.I don't think that was supposed to happen.
Once the spell was successfully cast, and it doesn't require concentration to maintain, I believe it should have lasted its whole duration.
It's an old story trope that you can end a magic spell by killing the person who cast it. It is pretty reasonable that the GM let it slide. I assume the elf didn't let the PCs ransack the temple afterwards, so they're already missing out on some loot.
Actually, the Undead guardian gave our Solarian some blade-gem as a sign of gratefulness and he told us where the rest of the cultists were hiding. After we killed those, he allowed us to explore the temple, take notes, photos and all that, but made us promise not to loot anything and not to reveal the location of the temple to outsiders. To be honest, I am not sure the Kasatha Professor we rescued will hold her part of the bargain, but I guess we did.
One of us was playing a Scholar Technomancer avid for new knowledge, and she was super-psyched to have some kind of "expert tour-guide" helping her with the interpretation and understanding the rituals of the Elves and all that. There were some funny moments when she was shushing the rescued Kasatha Professor and telling her to keep quiet and let the real expert speak (i.e. the Undead guardian). I am playing a Vesk Mechanic (Cyberborn - Exocortex / i.e. Cyber-lizard) and was not really interested in that whole bit, if not for the fun moments of RP we had with that undead elven rockstar. So all-in-all, I am quite happy we didn't fight him.
I know from running Age of Worms with that GM waaaaay back when, that he takes a lot of freedom with modules - so there is that. When we're done I'll read the modules and will probably chuckle a lot at all things gone weird and off-rail we did.
It's an old story trope that you can end a magic spell by killing the person who cast it. It is pretty reasonable that the GM let it slide. I assume the elf didn't let the PCs ransack the temple afterwards, so they're already missing out on some loot.
I get it, he was probably aiming for a happy ending, or didn't want to make them fight Paneliar after Tahomen - depending on the party, it'd be a tougher battle.
Played this encounter this last weekend and my party bodied the elf dude. We are a Dragonkin whip soldier/mystic, a SRO bombard soldier/mechanic, an android operative, a vesk solarion, and me a Shirren Envoy. The Dragonkin with 15 reach basically shuts down a lot of melee fights, because they just constantly are eating AOOs. Honestly, one of the worst fights for us was the Lore Guardians. Granted, despite being a 5 person party, in combat we are essentially a 4 person party, because my Envoy is not built for combat at all.
Thanks for sharing your experiences with this encounter. I'm going to be running this encounter in the near future, so it's good to hear all the ways the players will make this go off the rails. I like to have a general idea of how to deal with it so they can go where they like without breaking the story too much.
Somehow we ended up chatting with that undead Elf while staying outside of the temple‘s limits. We went all „Oh sure, sir! We gonna stay outside sir!“. Not sure why/how but he then let drop that the cultist boss went up the mountain with others, so we ended up skipping the temple ar first and chased after „Paqual“ whom we ended up ambushing on his way down.
Not sure if the GM just let that info slipout inadvertently or because the Envoy made a silly high Diplo roll. On our way back the undead Elf was not dominated anymore and all friendly. He thanked us for freeing him of the cultist‘s leader control and helped us a bit.
My players did this also. They specifically asked about the trail leading up the mountain and if anyone had gone there.