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4: Encourage 'Raise Dead' after near-TPK. Allow body recovery (by stealth or whatever). Avoid dropping corpses into lava. If there's no surviving cleric, use NPC allies, town priests, magic items, etc.
5: Don't kill them. More 'illusion of danger', less actual danger. Always have a little give in an encounter. For example: there are more enemies in the next room but they don't arrive in time to help if the party are having a sufficiently bad time already. Or: there are NPC allies of the party hanging back, who participate more or less depending on how things are going. Or: the boss turns out to have a limited number of times per day they can do their legendary actions.
(Do this stuff cautiously - if the players notice, it's bad for the game.)
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Your players are entering the level range where a true tpk should be extremely difficult if they've done a little bit of prep. A contingency teleport spell to a friendly temple, triggered on character death, and you're covered.
You can leave your plans with a friendly druid with directions to follow you, sneak out with some material, and reincarnate you if you go missing for more than three days.
There's also things like the clone spell. This is all assuming too that no one in the party managed to escape the party wipe in the first place. If someone DOES escape, it's on them to determine how they're going to bring the rest of the party back - or not.
But if you DO get a total tpk, well... time for a new campaign or a new party. Personally, I'd prefer a new campaign.
No matter what you do, something will be lost. If you have a full TPK and someone brings the party back, you've just informed them that they're not in any real peril and they can coast to the conclusion of your story.
If you let them bring in NEW characters, you're telling them something similar - one way or another the group is going to win even if it means throwing new party members into the mix over and over again. There's no true failure.
So I prefer losing the occasional campaign to a TPK over losing the tension of playing the game.
Caveat time: if you wipe, or nearly wipe, the party because you're homebrewing battle mechanics based on wow raids... mea culpa that. Be up front with it - hopefully before you wipe the party but if necessary immediately after it happens and just rewind to immediately prior to that fight. Admit you f#@$ed up by giving the boss a homebrew ability that was broken, and tell them you're not going to penalize the party because you were the one who made a mistake. Of course, only use that as an option if it was your error and not simply bad decisions made by party members.
Let legitimate losses stand, and be upfront about an error if the loss was unfair and based on a broken mechanic.
At that point, you might let them redo the fight without that mechanic, or just give them a super toned down enemy since, you know, they already fought that enemy once before.
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5: Don't kill them. More 'illusion of danger', less actual danger. Always have a little give in an encounter. For example: there are more enemies in the next room but they don't arrive in time to help if the party are having a sufficiently bad time already. Or: there are NPC allies of the party hanging back, who participate more or less depending on how things are going. Or: the boss turns out to have a limited number of times per day they can do their legendary actions.
(Do this stuff cautiously - if the players notice, it's bad for the game.)
Reinforcements are a great way to adjust encounter difficulty on the fly. How are the players to know exactly who or what might join the battle, and when?
Kill them.
Have them build characters with that battle in mind.
Rebuild your bosses to kill them in new and terrifying ways.
After a TPK or near-such my experience is that unless you have a great hook to follow up the players will lose interest and move on to a new game. A great hook almost has to be specific to the game or group of players.
More likely you move on to that new game.
It is a high-level party. If at least one person can escape with the bodies they should have resources to raise dead or reincarnate.
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For the first wipe, I'd prep an adventure where some entity of great power reaches out to the recently deceased group, posisbly directly talking to their souls and hijacking them before Pharasma can pass them onto the afterlife. They are high-ish level adventurers after all and have proven their resourcefulness and power/skill, which death would waste.
This entity isn't selfless or omnipotent though, and requires a task in return. If they succeed, he/she promises to retun them to life permanently, possibly keeping part of their souls hostage until their task is completed. Perhaps this entity conviently wants the BBEG that killed the PC's to fail, since the BBEG is also an enemy of this entity. Have their first dealing end seemingly well for the PC'S provided they don't betray the entity, and the entity says it will look forward to further dealings. However, after the first wipe, every consecutive death requires a further sacrifice (preferably a heavy personal cost rather than losing statistics) for the entity to keep helping, such as a more difficult task or something else that somehow benefits the entity. Maybe the entity can actually present itself as a benevolent figure, whose demands seem reasonable but which also have hidden repercussions. And when the PC's finally defeat the original BBEG, the patron entity becomes the new BBEG, who uses everything the PC'S lost or unknowingly did to futher entity's goals during their forced dealings with him/her/it.
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If the BBEG is trying to stop the party, the best way to do it is kill them.
If the BBEG is trying to kill the party, the best way to do it is kill them.
I see no reason to hold back in either endeavor for the BBEG.
If you feel the need to nerf the ability of the BBEG to complete his mission, in favor of the party completing their mission, then don't kill them...
The BBEG leaves in the middle of the battle for inexplicable reasons.
Have the hokus pokus Divine Intervention BS, which only works if at least one person in the party is directly tied to a deity that cares about the affairs of mortals, or for whatever reason hates their particular BBEG. Otherwise, there are deities that will take notice of the reversal of death no matter your reason.
Kill the party.
If it kills the campaign, that is how the campaign ends. As we all know, all campaigns have an end.
Reroll new high level characters, continue the quest against the BBEG.
Or don't, it's your choice.
After a TPK, a god or goddess interested in the demise of the BBEG meets the party before they pass to the afterlife and offers them a second chance at life, with certain provisos and quid pro quos.
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After a TPK, a god or goddess interested in the demise of the BBEG meets the party before they pass to the afterlife and offers them a second chance at life, with certain provisos and quid pro quos.
And literally every other deity concerned with the afterlife takes notice...
One random BBEG gets special attention from a random specific deity that SOMEHOW avoids the attention of every REAL deity that focuses on death/undeath? Lol.
Go for it. It's your game. Save your stupid party if you must, but it actually making sense is a joke, right?
Either favor the party or the BBEG, it's your choice... probably should have been made at the beginning, not the end...
After a TPK, a god or goddess interested in the demise of the BBEG meets the party before they pass to the afterlife and offers them a second chance at life, with certain provisos and quid pro quos.And literally every other deity concerned with the afterlife takes notice...
One random BBEG gets special attention from a random specific deity that SOMEHOW avoids the attention of every REAL deity that focuses on death/undeath? Lol.
Go for it. It's your game. Save your stupid party if you must, but it actually making sense is a joke, right?
Either favor the party or the BBEG, it's your choice... probably should have been made at the beginning, not the end...
It doesn't have to be a deity, it can be any high-level entity who is interested in the BBEG's demise who thinks it may be worth it to save the party.
High level parties typically have answers to TPKs though. You really only need to save the low/mid lvl parties.
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And, if "SAVING" anyone was ever in the cards, that decision should have been made at the beginning... not the end.
Saving someone outside of Dice/Level/Build is a joke.
You either are built for it and survive, or you die...
Be it BBEG or the party, live and die by the campaign.
If the party is better, they win.
If not, suck it, die... BBEG wins.
Otherwise, what is the freaking point of any of this?
I have a Kingmaker campaign going, right meow...
I fully expect the party to survive the majority of what these books have to offer...
I have invented my own terror to compete this saga...
The party has conquered the overall idea of Kingmaker, half way through, I added more to specifically make it more difficult.
I made the decision that the party wins only IF they actually win.
I made it so that the BBEG is larger, smarter, more deadly than the party can actually meet in the given time.
They actually have to play smart, and beat near insurmountable odds to win in an otherwise preestablished campaign.
I did this, on purpose, at "Step One".
Everyone with knowledge of the Kingmaker campaign is still at a loss in my campaign, because I hold a stalwart F-U to the party when they think they have it right.
EAT IT!
Or don't, die, get out of my way, I have a story to tell...
And, if "SAVING" anyone was ever in the cards, that decision should have been made at the beginning... not the end.
Saving someone outside of Dice/Level/Build is a joke.
You either are built for it and survive, or you die...
Be it BBEG or the party, live and die by the campaign.
If the party is better, they win.
If not, suck it, die... BBEG wins.
Otherwise, what is the freaking point of any of this?
Well, it sounds like the DM is having regrets because he made his monster too strong with homebrew abilities. I almost exclusively make homebrew monsters, so I know how this goes. I've made a few encounters that were way, WAAY too hard. Anywho, I have no problem killing the PC's or even doing a TPK especially at the mid-high levels. Once the party has access to Lichdom, Time Stop, Contingency, Wish, Greater Teleport, etc., if they TPK that's the party's fault hands down, regardless of how hard the encounter is. But at the low-mid levels before you have access to stuff like that, it's perfectly fine to have a DM intervention. In fact, it can be kinda cool to. Now the party is beholden to some powerful entity.
The threat of death must always be present, otherwise the battles have no purpose/meaning. But, if the party dies because of something the DM did and the DM does nothing to fix it, that can lead to general distrust in the DM from the players. The 2nd or 3rd time the party dies due to another fault of the DM, you can bet the farm that players will either leave your table or become so salty that future games aren't fun anymore.
It's a delicate balance to have when homebrewing. If it's established material or the PC's die because of their own fault, that's a whole different situation. Because if the PC's die from their own fault and the DM saves them, the players will make "leap first without looking" decisions expecting the DM to save them, and then be frustrated when they aren't saved.
TPK's truly are case-by-case scenarios. So do what you feel is fair and right.
Honestly, to all that may be listening...
Shouldn't EVERY single BBEG literally be designed for a TPK?
If not, what is the point?
Oh, cool, you made a casual bad guy that you knew the party will beat all along... Lame!
Super F!CK!NG lame.
Glad I just spent 18 months of my life beating a b!tch.
Before I get banned for avoiding filters...
If you aren't trying for a TPK, you aren't doing your BBEG any justice...
You SHOULD always be tailoring the BBEG to TPK your party, literally their only reason for existing.
Level 20 characters are SUPPOSED to be rare.
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Honestly, to all that may be listening...
Shouldn't EVERY single BBEG literally be designed for a TPK?
If not, what is the point?
Oh, cool, you made a casual bad guy that you knew the party will beat all along... Lame!
Super F!CK!NG lame.
Glad I just spent 18 months of my life beating a b!tch.
My players are about to face a TPK in the next session (next Saturday) :)
The party found a strange coin and a marble about 3-4 months ago; the coin causes the marble to smoke whenever it is flipped on the tail side facing up, and the coin and the marble cannot be carried within 60ft. of each other-- it repels the carriers of the two items like opposing magnets. They couldn't make heads or tails of it, but they did figure out that the coin holds a demon and the marble holds a lich, and they both used to be best friends.
Anywho, in this last session, the party was sent to take down a Dwarven Necromancer named Thum'dak deep in the mountain halls. But once they arrived, they saw Thum'dak nailed to the wall with pitons and his flesh had been feasted upon by zombies and ghouls.
Suddenly, a Rakshasa Necromancer comes crawling up on the wall and she's dressed like a dark ranger of sorts, with an Ebony Longbow around her chest. She monologues for a second, gleefully thanking them for delivering the coin and marble to her, which she then summons to her hand and squashes them both into dust, summoning a very powerful lich and a scorpion-like demon with a ram's head, and then the Rakshasa's minions start waddling in the mountain hall....
...but the best part, is there's no legitimate escape. It would take me a while to explain this part, but there's literally no escape.
Before they left, I told them they're now leveled up, and this is going to be a challenge encounter. Expect a "knock-down, drag 'em out fight".
I'll let you know how it goes :)
Sorry-not-sorry to all you PFS "it stops at level 12" guys, but sometimes the show must go on... same for all the pre-established AP's...
You either create a quest the party is guaranteed to accomplish, or...
You don't.
It's literally your choice.
That's assuming this druid can sneak into a castle full of demons
Druids drink potions of invisibility, can turn into elementals and burrow or fly to where they need to be.
and that there's anything left for the body to find. As a player said to me:
"Whoever can be saved great but in this situation that seems like the best we can get away with, demons aren't stupid they're not gonna leave strong peoples bodies to be brought back to fight against them again."
Druids are wise; demons are crazy. Their main goal is causing pain. And annihilating a body beyond the possibility of resurrection is hard. Even a pinch of ash from a disintegrated PC is sufficient material.
Instead of asking, "What would this character do?" in RPGs, I ask, "What could this character do?"
For example, demons could be trying to:
Kill the PCs, plane shift their bodies into hell.
Capture the PCs to torture and mutilate them.
Capture the PCs to turn them to evil.
Incapacitate the PCs and trap their souls.
Mind-control the PCs, force them to fight their enemies.
Turn the PCs into undead.
Turn the PCs into flesh golems.
Have the PCs sacrificed in elaborate rituals to please their demon overlords.
Use the PCs' body parts to decorate their sanctum.
Cook and eat the PCs.
Use the PCs' bodies as bait to capture their allies.
Kill the PCs, loot their magic items, fight one another over who gets to keep the magic items.
Having come up with my list of possibilities, I then pick one that seems:
(a) Plausible (if I work to make it plausible).
(b) Makes continuing the campaign possible if things go bad.
(c) Is interesting and memorable.
Then I work at establishing my concept in advance. The demon lair is guarded by weird flesh golems with extra legs, made from multiple bodies stitched together. Or: the demons have a fancy dining room and a demon butler and a demon chef with a human children in a cage in the kitchen.
They usually won't need rescuing, but even if they don't, I've still given my dungeon some flavor.
If you aren't trying for a TPK, you aren't doing your BBEG any justice...
You SHOULD always be tailoring the BBEG to TPK your party, literally their only reason for existing.
If I tailored a BBEG to TPK the party, I'd TPK the party. It's not hard. Just give the bad guy ten mythic ranks or something like that.
So I'm going to assume you really mean something like, "Tailor a BBEG so it looks like they could kill the party; my players tend to surprise me with their ingenuity so it usually doesn't happen."
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Kill them.
Have them build characters with that battle in mind.
Rebuild your bosses to kill them in new and terrifying ways.
Worst advice ever. GMs complain already that players aren't invested in their characters enough and don't roleplay enough and treat characters as statblocks to be munchkinned into statistical oblivion.
This is how it happens.
It is a high-level party. If at least one person can escape with the bodies they should have resources to raise dead or reincarnate.That's the catch...looking best case scenario is probably 2 manage to escape alive and with 1 body. Leaving 1 body behind and 2 people MCed.
It's an 11th level party. Short range transportation magic capable of moving the whole party has been available since 7th level. Long range transportation and even planar travel for the entire party starts coming online at 9th level. Barring that, shove bodies in a bag of holding.
They should have Plan B, Plan C, and Plan D for when they encounter something they cannot beat with a simple bum rush. Recovery and Retreat should be covered by at least two of those plans.
Shouldn't EVERY single BBEG literally be designed for a TPK?
If not, what is the point?
A BBEG should be both thematically appropriate and challenging.
Challenging does not mean designed to TPK, though it does not preclude the possibility of the BBEB being stronger than the party anticipates. Depending on circumstances, the BBEG may be substantially weaker than the party, but require the party to expend significant resources prior to reaching him.
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First off: There are many, many ways to play the game. So long as you and your group are having fun, you've chosen the right way.
Now, for me:
1. Characters can, and sometimes do, die. Yes, this is inconvenient in storytelling terms. However, the threat of actual death does make the successes more memorable. Otherwise, lets just play group story time.
2. If the party can recover the dead character's body, I usually make it so that they can find a way to revive said character should the player actually wish it (newsflash, sometimes they don't). I even do this at low levels by allowing a friendly NPC to use a scroll, spell, etc. Of course, the party may not have the funds on hand for said service, in which case they now have a debt.
3. Sometimes, I screw up. When this happens, I own it (and even the OP admits this). If that happens, then there's some form of a reboot. I try to tell a story with it if I can, but sometimes you have to resort to the really bad dream. By the way, the really bad dream cliche is great for GM screw up. Not so great for "Well that just didn't go the way we expected, stupid dice."
4. Sometimes the players screw up. The death of their character gives them a good incentive to learn. A lot of players believe that brute force is always the best strategy. Its not. Again, hopefully your group learns from the experience and more to the point, hopefully some of them made it out.
5. I also do not like to set up encounters that don't have an "out". In other words, I like to make retreat a valid option most of the time. Sure, there will be occasions when that just doesn't make sense, but those should be fairly rare. Now if nobody chooses to retreat . . . see #4.
6. GM screens are great for when things are truly going haywire. That 19 on the die? Ooops I only saw the 1. Or maybe the BBEG had a few less HPs than the notes say. Or perhaps one of those higher level spells was already use on something else.
7. BBEG's can be pretty petty, cruel, crazy, etc. So, as hinted by an above poster, when the BBEG kills a couple of PCs but a few other PCs escape, the BBEG sees the dead PCs for what they really are, an opportunity. Maybe they bring back the PC so they can interrogate them to learn more about the surviving PCs. Maybe they want to have a lot of fun torturing said PC. Maybe they want to make the PC fight her comrades when the party comes back, leaving the party with another moral dilemma. Maybe they just want to put the PC's head on a stake outside the gate as a warning. Naturally, this doesn't help with a full on TPK, but you get the idea.
8. TPKs can and occasionally do happen. For me, a lot depends on the group here. Some groups prefer to have the "entity" pull their hides out of the fire and thus, have the debt, etc. and carry on with the story. Others, "Well, that sucks, but it was a cool fight at least. What characters do you guys want to play next?" For that latter group, you can even start off at about the same level if you want.
Got a really cool campaign story going that you didn't get to finish? No sweat, start the next campaign in the same setting, but maybe fast forward X years. Now the players get to see what has happened as a result of their failure. BBEG has taken over the land, everyone is in service, etc. But there are a few beacons of hope, small pockets of resistance, etc., etc. Your story goes on, it just takes a different, unexpected twist. Best of all, you can pepper the new campaign with occasional tales of the heroes of yesteryear.
Finally, I have a table full of really long time players, some with some serious RPG cred. When they reach the level where things like Res are available, I fully expect them to do things like, give fingernail clippings, or hair clippings, to everyone in the party. Just in case. There's even some semi-historical sway in this. Japanese pilots in WWII cut their fingernails and put them in a box before going on kamikaze runs so that their families would have something to bury.
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1, "IT WAS ALL A DREAM!" I don't really like this option, I think it cheapens death and makes failing meaningless.
I've promised myself that one day I will have a TPK and take the "IT WAS ALL A DREAM!" out. This will eventually fade into an "I don't think we survived that fight..." moment followed by an official, "Welcome to Hell. You're dead." speech. The major conflict/goals will shift to escaping the plane where they don't belong, finding a way to keep from losing themselves to the plane as Petitioners, finishing that last thing that they needed to do in life, and eventually retiring themselves to their proper places in the afterlife.
Maybe one day.
I WANT the final encounter to be memorable!! And IF the DM has it all planned out, let there be a SEQUEL. The big bad ran away but he's back in an even badder way; he'd never been beaten before and this is a desperate grab to regain his power or whatever the narrative, I want it to be memorable, even if it ends in character death. Memorable. That's what as a Player, I care about.As a DM, that's what I want; my player's to talk about and reference the game I ran for year's to come. Who cares if it was a TPK, as long as it was Memorable.
Can't agree with you more. Ironically, I had a player complain once because the boss of the adventure (not even the campaign), "ran away" when it looked like the boss would lose. Of course, said boss was a dragon. I just kind of looked at the player and was like "So if the roles had been reversed, and your character was looking like he was going to die but had a readily available escape route, you'd just stand there and fight in vain to the inevitable death?"
Player: Well no, but that's different.
Me: Eyeroll.
Seriously, though the big bad, mean, intelligent, ruthless, bosses are the best and most memorable. I had one boss in a former campaign that the party never did kill despite fighting 3 or 4 times (sadly the campaign ended before its ultimate conclusion due to real life) but the players were always talking about her. The boss put more than one character into the grave. Taunted the characters. Even thanked them a couple of times (the boss would get stronger when it got sufficiently damaged). Had the PCs in fits, but the players chomping at the bit to kill her.
I can't even begin to tell you about how many times I've come up with an awesome villain who becomes curbstomped by the party.