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Death is a part of life, and also the food upon which we GMs dine.
Please include:
Name of PC:
Class/Level:
Adventure:
Catalyst:
Story:
Nice, I like the way you've incorporated their downed companion into the party's story. I'd make sure the party knows they're only fighting a much less powerful manifestation of Dahak, and not the real deal, otherwise when they are victorious they may think Dahak has been dealt with for good!
Felix - Half Elf Nomad Rogue Lvl 1 - Hellknight Hill - Warg
Wandered off alone down a hall and near the former court room where the warg found him and killed him with a couple of regular hits then a critical. The warg then proceeded to drag his body out and away from the citadel, never to be seen again. The party found the spot with a lot of blood and drag marks but were unable to follow once they got outside.
Celembar - Seer Elf Martial Disciple Universal Wizard Lvl 2 - Hellknight Hill - Wight
Brought down by one of the wights in the secret room. The party was not get to him in time before he bleed out. The party along with nearly all the people he helped save from the burning Town Hall gathered to give thanks and help cremate his body.
The next three deaths were a result of running around the entire mine. I didn't have everything attack them all at once but they were way over their heads and refused to run.
Akuma - Half Orc Former Criminal Enforcer Monk 6 - Cult of Cinders - Mokele-mbembe
The Barbarian and the Rogue opened the cage hoping to lead it to destroy everything else but of course they could not calm the creature down. It started to attack them and Akuma could not get away from the mokele-mbembe and was eaten.
Grumary - Brumblebrasher Goblin Fey Sorcerer 6 - Cult of Cinders - Charau-ka Butcher
Verin - Half-Elven Cleric of Sarenrae 6 - Cult of Cinders - Charau-ka Butcher
Grumary and Verin finally decided to retreat but did not want to leave each other behind. Verin cast Sanctuary on Grumary and moved back while telling her to not attack and just run. Grumary tried to slow them down with an attack despite her warnings, failed and was brought down as the Charau-ka Butchers charged them both. After a couple weeks of having retreated back to Akrivel and "finding" new adventurers, the Barbarian and Rogue found nothing left of their former party members except a few tattered ribbons of flesh being cooked on the ends of the charua-ka's tridents.
Name of PC: Our Warpriest's Rapier
Class/Level: +2 frost greater striking shifting greater staff of healing
Adventure: Fires of the Haunted City
Catalyst: Purple Worm Ambush
Story: My party was walking around after passing through the Jewelgate and fighting the Carnivorous Crystals. They noticed that the ground looked like it had been dug out by a massive creature, with one of them realizing it was a purple worm... and then initiative was rolled as the monster charged through the wall! With it's Athletics roll of a billion, the worm went first.
At our table we use a seventh stat called "Tastiness" that our GM (the cleric in this story) made up while sleep-deprived during Serpent's Skull when our ranger kept asking him how good each individual animal he hunted tasted. Roll 3d6 and if you get 16+ you roll another d6. Snakes, for example, are 11 Tastiness, hippopotami are 22 tastiness (wtf?) and the warpriest was 12... the highest in the party.
So the purple worm charges the cleric with two moves, then bites him once (a critical hit), improved grab firing off to grapple automatically, then he gets swallowed whole as a reaction. Overall the cleric takes 100 damage!
Inside the purple worm our cleric decides to cast Word of Freedom despite the drowning rules. I explain that it'll drop him inside a square of the worm's gargantuan space, so to be fair, we'll roll a die and that'll be the square he ends up on. A roll of 20 has him thrown free, but a 3 2 or 1 will put him 10, 15 or 20 ft up in the worm's square (then roll again to see where he falls). Since he only has 2 actions due to the slowed 1 from being swallowed whole, he needs to land on an edge or the worm might knock him out again-- and if so, he'll get swallowed again at the end of his turn! He decides to go for it. The spell knocks him unconscious (as expected), and he falls out of the worm, becoming conscious again when he has access to air. We roll and he's on the edge-- so he spends his 2nd action to crawl out of the worm's space. He's no longer swallowed whole. But because he went unconscious inside the worm, he dropped his weapon there...
One solid intimidate later and the creature was Frightened 2, then Frightened 4, then crit-fails a Synesthesia and uses Shake it Off, then crit fails a Fear and is Frightened 6 and fleeing. It takes about 170 damage from the raging Barbarian, dips into the earth and runs for its life, never to return.
With the newly upgraded rapier.
RIP
PS. Because we have an Animal druid in the party, their anathema is killing animals unnecessarily. So even if we could find the worm in the darklands, it would cause our druid to fall... so it's written off entirely.
Fear doesn't stack like that, does it? Y'all got a house rule in place there?
Fear doesn't stack like that, does it? Y'all got a house rule in place there?
You're super right. In my defense... it's more interesting for the players to use tactics like that and it ends fights earlier, which I'm a big fan of.
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Fear doesn't stack like that, does it? Y'all got a house rule in place there?You're super right. In my defense... it's more interesting for the players to use tactics like that and it ends fights earlier, which I'm a big fan of.
Hey, if it works for y'all go for it. Just highlighting it so the rules don't get confused.
Does it count if the party was able to get them rezed?
It counts
Name: I confess I've forgotten. It's been a while.
Class: gnome paladin 3, iirc
When: book 1, fight with Voz
Cause: tixitog ate him
Voz escaped from her spot through the tixitog's room, which they hadn't explored yet. The tixitog focused on the morsel-sized gnome first, and successfully swallowed him. Having already received a lot of damage, he eventually fell unconcious and suffocated before they could free him.
They gave him a viking funeral.
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Name: Thaddaeus
Class: human bard 9
When: book 3, the fight against the dude looking for Voz
Cause: a couple crits from the lathe trap
They didn't notice the existence of the trap, and a couple turns later he got turbo-murdered by it. Having already used his hero point, he then proceeded to roll 2 1s and bleed out while the healer was also unconcious. The trap DID also kill most of the minions, too, so hey.
He got reincarnated as a hobgoblin. The goblins love him now.
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Bonus: a goblin GMPC died to angry monkeys in book two and was reincarnated... as a goblin.
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The tixitog focused on the morsel-sized gnome first, and successfully swallowed him. Having already received a lot of damage, he eventually fell unconcious and suffocated before they could free him.
Once I read about the tixitog I really wished one of my player characters were small sized! Not fun for the character, but makes for a memorable encounter.
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The tixitog focused on the morsel-sized gnome first, and successfully swallowed him. Having already received a lot of damage, he eventually fell unconcious and suffocated before they could free him.Once I read about the tixitog I really wished one of my player characters were small sized! Not fun for the character, but makes for a memorable encounter.
One of the pcs in my party, the rogue, is a goblin, he keeps a list of the monsters that swallowed him already....
The tixitog focused on the morsel-sized gnome first, and successfully swallowed him. Having already received a lot of damage, he eventually fell unconcious and suffocated before they could free him.Once I read about the tixitog I really wished one of my player characters were small sized! Not fun for the character, but makes for a memorable encounter.
Earlier, he had just barely avoided being eaten by the warg. And the same player later got eaten by the giant crocodile in the Cinderclaw Fortress (he managed to escape this time), so you've still got a chance!
Name of PC: Valston
Class/Level: Bard Gnome Lvl 9
Adventure: Tomorrow Must Burn
Catalyst: Kelleni; Elite Night Hag
Story: The party had gone through the room and destroyed the Tree of Dreadful Dreams and just defeated Rusty Mae and Senna. Haznazak was still standing and they were hurt badly. The Fighter was down and rest were at around ten percent health. The Sorcerer told Haznazak to leave, the ones it had made a deal with were now dead. Haznazak told them very well and turned Invisible again. They didn't even bother to check, they just trusted it! I was going to have him ambush the players again once another fight broke out unless they left right away and Haznazak would leave on his own.
I had held off Kelleni and Coalnasher due to how close to death the party already was. My dice were on fire and the players were feeling the burn. The Bard for whatever reason decides to look into the room where Kelleni is. The rest of the party is looking around, examining the cauldron and the portal trying to figure out what the scorch marks mean.
We're still in turn-based mode so everybody gets to do something. I've had to adjust to this play style since some players get over zealous and try doing too much while others want to do something never get a word in.
Bard looks in, is out of actions and I describe the room and Kelleni, all warty and in mid sentence complaining about how she isn't part of the negations and should storm in there when she spots the Bard. She puts on a toothy grin and sways her hips while she walks towards this handsome fellow. She tells him he looks absolutely delicious and bites him. Takes damage and crit fails the save vs Abyssal Plague. She drags him over to a corner where next round he fails Recovery Check and dies.
From this and a bit of meta from the Ranger, he goes to see what the Bard is doing. Same thing, runs out of actions as he gets into the room, Kelleni bites him and he goes down fails save vs Abyssal Plague. We had to pause there for the night as it was well past our normal time.
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Name of PC: Willie T Shig
Class/Level: Bard Lvl 1
Adventure: Hellknight Hill
Catalyst: Yoletcha, the critical fumble deck, and his own teammate.
Story: The team had entered into Castle Altarein via the hole in the southern wall, scaling the broken wall section into the training gymnasium. Unfortunately, the team (and the bard in specific) weren’t very stealthy. No, that’s not accurate. They were making LOADS of noise. The bard was complaining loudly, mainly because climbing the wall wasn’t allowing him to quench his thirst from his wineskin. And he was letting everyone know it.
The goblin rogue discovered a secret door, and after plumbing it for its treasures the team tried to sneak back out but stealth was a bit too little, too late as Yoletcha (who, in my re-write, trains the goblin dogs and is a scout/enforcer for the Bloody Blades sent by Voz to prevent others from exploring the keep) and her pack had entered the gymnasium to explore the noise.
Willie got off a lucky colour spray and blinded Yoletcha and the fight was on. Despite being a feckless combatant, her goblin dogs did a number on the team, who were forced back into the secret room, but not before the sorcerer on the team made one last-ditch attempt to blast Yoletcha out of commission with a flaming hands spell.
No one expects a natural 1; the result was a critical hit on the nearest ally (Willie), who had already suffered considerably during the fight and sat at Wounded 3. The minimum damage from the errant spell sent him under and to perma-death, and we ruled that his body caught fire as the fumes from his wineskin-sousing attracted the flames from the sorcerer’s fire magic on their way to Yoletcha. The goblin stabbed the bugbear to death the next turn, but Willie was well and truly cooked.
RIP Willie T. Shig.
Name: Uhn
Class/Level: Barbarian 11
Adventure: Tomorrow Must Burn
Catalyst: Bad tactics, splitting the party, several boots to the face.
Story: With a team of heroes riding the high of slaughtering their way through Tanessen Tower, they came to Summershade Quarry. The draconic sorcerer, with time to think, cast prying eye and learned the layout of most of the quarry along with nearly all of the enemies within. Realizing that attacking head on and getting into a battle with the giant in the center of the quarry would be a bad idea, they begin to plan to ambush the Triad members guarding the caves.
The elemental sorcerer (yes, my team has two sorcerers) turns himself invisible while Uhn, the barbarian, sprinkles himself with some dust of disappearance. The two sneak up on the unsuspecting guards. However, worried that the guards might run to alert someone else, Uhn takes up a position by the western tunnel leading deeper into the caverns.
After some ghost sound tricks that only give away their position, the elemental sorcerer unleashes a cone of cold on the gathered slavers in the eastern room. Uhn responds by attacking the resting guards in the western room. The two of them begin battle with the ten thieves, and it's going poorly. In a flash, the elemental sorcerer is on the ground with several broken ribs and Uhn isn't fairing much better.
When the cleric and draconic sorcerer join the fray, it's already too late for the elemental sorcerer (who managed to stabilize with a hero point). The cleric is the next to fall beneath the boots of the Triad. Uhn, however, is still holding his own, his massive weapon keeping his foes at bay in the western room. Seeing no hope, the draconic sorcerer runs away, not knowing the fate of his friend.
The barbarian holds out for a few more turns, taking two more slavers with him before he, too, falls. When he comes to, he is stripped of the gate key he held (Eclipse) and is killed. Unfortunately, the Scarlet Triad has no use for goblins, especially not goblins who happened to kill five of their men.
Name of PC: Willie T Shig
Class/Level: Bard Lvl 1
Adventure: Hellknight Hill
Catalyst: Yoletcha, the critical fumble deck, and his own teammate.Story: The team had entered into Castle Altarein via the hole in the southern wall, scaling the broken wall section into the training gymnasium. Unfortunately, the team (and the bard in specific) weren’t very stealthy. No, that’s not accurate. They were making LOADS of noise. The bard was complaining loudly, mainly because climbing the wall wasn’t allowing him to quench his thirst from his wineskin. And he was letting everyone know it.
The goblin rogue discovered a secret door, and after plumbing it for its treasures the team tried to sneak back out but stealth was a bit too little, too late as Yoletcha (who, in my re-write, trains the goblin dogs and is a scout/enforcer for the Bloody Blades sent by Voz to prevent others from exploring the keep) and her pack had entered the gymnasium to explore the noise.
Willie got off a lucky colour spray and blinded Yoletcha and the fight was on. Despite being a feckless combatant, her goblin dogs did a number on the team, who were forced back into the secret room, but not before the sorcerer on the team made one last-ditch attempt to blast Yoletcha out of commission with a flaming hands spell.
No one expects a natural 1; the result was a critical hit on the nearest ally (Willie), who had already suffered considerably during the fight and sat at Wounded 3. The minimum damage from the errant spell sent him under and to perma-death, and we ruled that his body caught fire as the fumes from his wineskin-sousing attracted the flames from the sorcerer’s fire magic on their way to Yoletcha. The goblin stabbed the bugbear to death the next turn, but Willie was well and truly cooked.
RIP Willie T. Shig.
How many pcs in that party? When you joined the bugbear and the goblin dogs in the same fight, if they were 4 pcs, you could have wiped the entire party...
The encounter budget for the combined monsters put that encounter even above extreme....
Name of PC: Rune
Class/Level: Fighter 10
Adventure: Tomorrow Must Burn
Catalyst: Alchemical Golems and Scarlet Triad Poisoners
Story: The party had accended Tanessen Tower, cleared the sixth floor and made their way up to the seventh. The Alchemical Golems immediately hear the party and spot the Cleric as he looks around the corner. Throughout the fight several critical hits against the two golems cause Alchemical Rupture hitting the Fighter each time. The Scarlet Triad Poisoners hear the fighting, come out and start firing their poison crossbows in to the group. One of them scores a critical hit against the fighter and drops them. The Sorcerer cast Chromatic Wall trying to cut the Poisoners off for even just a brief moment.
The Cleric heals the group but then falls a round later. One of the golems moves down the stairs looking for the Sorcerer who is Invisible. Sorcerer cast Passwall underneath the golem, which fails their check not to fall down to the sixth floor. This buys time for the Monk to finish off the other golem. The original golem comes back, easily jumps over the hole made by Passwall. Monk is soon to be surrounded by the remaining Poisoners and the final golem but books it.
Sorcerer grabs the figher who has already failed one Recovery Check and is now at Dying 2, breaks the window behind him and falls backwards out casting Feather Fall as a reaction. Taking two rounds to fall gently to the ground the Fighter continues to fail their Recovery Check and dies just as they land on the ground.
Heroically the Sorcerer cast Dragon Wings, waits a round Dimension Door and appears behind their Chromatic Wall, sees the Poisoners manacling the Cleric and starting to carry them away. Sorcerer cast Color Spray, all fail with one critical failing their saves. Sorcerer goes through their Chromatic Wall, grabs the Cleric and flies out the window before the golem can react.
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Name of PC: Sheinn
Class/Level: Barbarian (Dragon-Instinct) 4
Adventure: Helllknight Hill
Catalyst: Ralldar, the Goblin-God
Story: After a full-rest in preparation for what they knew would be a tough fight, the party (alchemist/primal sorcerer/bard/barbarian) and Renali decided on a cunning ambush. The bard and the sorcerer would approach the Goblin-God from the south and appeal to his vanity while the barbarian and alchemist would approach from the western tunnel to flank Ralldar.
Yeah - the casters were getting within reach by themselves, and relying on a single bluff check and a good initiative roll to get out of dodge.
After a bit of too and fro, Ralldar sees the ruse and spots the flanking heroes. Roaring in rage, he assumes his true form and strikes at the sorcerer who had been leading the deception. Natural 20, strong start, and the sorcerer is immediately dying. Soon after the heroes become familiar with attacks of opportunity and reach.
The alchemist and the barbarian are rolling terribly and can't beat Ralldar's DC. Renali is invisible and casts illusory creature to flank Ralldar, and he becomes clumsy when he enlarges but. they. still. can't.beat it.
The alchemist purposefully prompts Ralldar's attack of opportunity, nearly dying, to allow the bard to pour a potion to save the sorcerer's life. The barbarian holds Ralldar by herself while the bard retreats - intending to come through the tunnels and join the alchemist and barbarian on their side of the cave. This takes a couple of rounds - all the while the barbarian is barely staying alive while it and Ralldar wail on each other. The sorcerer, much slower, retreats in a series of five foot steps to rush down the tunnel away from Ralldar.
Just as the bard reaches the mouth of the tunnel with the newly-retreated alchemist, the barbarian finally falls to Ralldar's strikes just as the alchemist strikes the barghest with persistent damage.
Renali, panicking, puts an illusory image of a wall in the mouth of the tunnel. Ralldar, denied the advantage of his reach and size to strike the heroes inside the tunnel roars, turns into a wolf, and leaps through the illusory wall. In a single bite, it finishes off the bard who begins to die in the tunnel. The alchemist tosses a frost bomb at Ralldar, slowing him down while the alchemist retreats.
Ralldar chases the alchemist down to the spider cavern, where the alchemist has met up with the sorcerer. The two of them plot Ralldar's moves and calculate the perfect place to wait - just five feet out of it's reach - impossible for it to strike without spending it's last action to move next to them. And if it decided to do that, an easy five foot step would get them out of reach. Foolproof!
Ralldar ends his second move action 10 feet out of reach, then transforms into his true form - throwing both the weakened heroes into his large reach. They sigh and calculate that if they step out of his reach, they won't have the actions to hurt him. One of them has to take the attack of opportunity and potentially die.
The alchemist takes the attack, yet again. Ralldar rolls a natural 1. Alchemist rolls his bomb - natural 20. Ralldar is still standing, and the sorcerer's spells fail to put him down, but the barghest body is basically falling apart at this point. It strikes at the heroes and rolls terribly - and as it reaches out over the weakened heroes, it collapses to the ground, dead from the alchemists persistent damage.
Meanwhile - our barbarian has been struggling with the dying condition, having thrown her hero point on trying to hit the barghest. Her persistent damage pushes her to dying 4, and she dies alone in the cavern.
Renali isn't fast enough to save Sheinn the barbarian but steals a potion from her and heads to the bard - who on dying 3 rolls a 14 and finally beats his own persistent damage. Renali heals the bard, just in time for the victorious sorcerer and bard to emerge from the tunnel. To mourn their friend and to prevent necromancy, they put her on Ralldar's throne and turn it into her pyre with the body of the enemy who flew her. In the shadows of the cavern, the heroes could swear they could see the shadow of a warrior moving, as if charging to face some unknown foe.
They would late rename Citadel Altarein Sheinn's Rest, in honour of their friend and only capable melee combatant.
Name of PC: WasvontenFeenundDrachenist, a.k.a. Was.
Class/Level: Sorcerer 8
Adventure: Cult of Cinders.
Catalyst: The Deinosuchus
Story: The party was going through the lake for the first time swimming, the deinosuchus managed to Aquatic Ambush Was, crit him for over 60 damage and swallow him. His brave rogue friend jumped inside of the creature's mouth voluntarily, and hesitated between feeding Was a Potion or pouring poison inside the creature so it would spit them out. Ended up opting for the second choice. When it came to Was's turn, he got a Nat 1 on the Dying test, and then immediately took the damage from being inside the creature, dying instantly. Super freaking sad.
Aquatic Ambush, Grab, Swallow Whole. Oof, that's one hell of a round for the deinosuchus.
Aquatic Ambush, Grab, Swallow Whole. Oof, that's one hell of a round for the deinosuchus.
Yup. The sad thing is that he still had amazing odds of surviving, he basically did the only thing that would have killed him in that situation, which was rolling a Nat 1 on his Dying save(no Hero Point left). Dice can be a b~*&& sometimes.
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Timon, Goblin Barbarian 12
Izo, Gnome Druid 12
Icky, Goblin Cleric 12
Anders, Human Champion 12
Adventure: Fires of the Haunted City
Catalyst: 2 Gugs and a Deculi (budgeted as a Moderate 12 encounter)
Story: Couple of players short tonight. The group was cruising along, having easily handled the gate and carnivorous crystal encounters and scared off the Purple Worm (he crit failed a fear spell, so I called the encounter). They headed into the first Gug encounter, and between the Heightened Darkness dropped by the Deculi, a large number of crits laid out by the Gugs (room is small enough the Gugs can both be hitting everyone in the party with their claw flurry) and a lot of bad rolls by the players, we have 4 dead characters.
I've yet to get past the first encounter, so no deaths yet.
That said, this thread looks really empty. Is PF2e just less lethal than PF1e (which has been my experience), less people playing or just less activity on the boards? As best I can tell the PF2e boards look pretty healthy.
I've yet to get past the first encounter, so no deaths yet.
That said, this thread looks really empty. Is PF2e just less lethal than PF1e (which has been my experience), less people playing or just less activity on the boards? As best I can tell the PF2e boards look pretty healthy.
I find that not everyone uses the Obituary thread. I lurk alot on the forum and will see people talking about player deaths, but haven't posted on this thread specifically.
As for lethality, ish? At least in my opinion, 2e is more balanced where an enemy meant to be threatening is threatening. 1e, you can upset the math to the point where an enemy that is suppose to a threat is a joke. I've never felt like death was immanent, but I have felt bad tactics will get me killed.
My personal groups death count:
(player)Plaguestone: Party Wipe
(GM)AoA: No deaths
(player)EC: 1 death (not me!)
(player)Plaguestone again: So far, no deaths.
I've yet to get past the first encounter, so no deaths yet.
That said, this thread looks really empty. Is PF2e just less lethal than PF1e (which has been my experience), less people playing or just less activity on the boards? As best I can tell the PF2e boards look pretty healthy.
For me it seems less lethal.
The party I am gming is at level 18th now and so far no deaths, some close calls, but zero deaths indeed.
The thing about PF1 was that while you could build characters that would absolutely roll over published adventures, a GM who tried to compensate and create actual challenges could very easily overtune and it became some serious rocket tag.
PF2 is a harder baseline but easier to adjust, and while characters get knocked out more often they die a lot less. At least in my experience.
I did have two PCs die in the fight for Cyrpess Point. The Barbarian got brained by One Eyed Amnin and then resurrected, but the fighter got his soul damned by Bullbutcher.
For me it seems less lethal.
The party I am gming is at level 18th now and so far no deaths, some close calls, but zero deaths indeed.
Less Lethal?
In my playgroup, 2nd edition has been a complete and utter meatgrinder! we have had a player death almost every session.I just discovered that there was an obituary thread but my group could probably double the amount of listings.
My coward of a wizard is the last original character from the party left. some players have had 4 character deaths... and we are only level 11
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For me it seems less lethal.
The party I am gming is at level 18th now and so far no deaths, some close calls, but zero deaths indeed.
Less Lethal?
In my playgroup, 2nd edition has been a complete and utter meatgrinder! we have had a player death almost every session.I just discovered that there was an obituary thread but my group could probably double the amount of listings.
My coward of a wizard is the last original character from the party left. some players have had 4 character deaths... and we are only level 11
Whoa. That hasn't been my experience (or from what I've read, the experience of most groups unless they're playing something written by Jason Bulmahn!
I kid, but I'm very interested to hear what you're running that has a PC death list sessions?
I'm running Age of Ashes and a conversion of Hell's Rebels plus a homemade game for my podcast, and no deaths so far in any of them.
Whoa. That hasn't been my experience (or from what I've read, the experience of most groups unless they're playing something written by Jason Bulmahn!I kid, but I'm very interested to hear what you're running that has a PC death list sessions?
I'm running Age of Ashes and a conversion of Hell's Rebels plus a homemade game for my podcast, and no deaths so far in any of them.
I don't know what to say. The new crit mechanics heavily favor GM characters. An average midboss character 1 level above the party level has 5% more crit chances and 5% less chances to be crit, 10% at some other levels if the stat boost kicked in.
In the same vein, this system made encounters below the PC level completely trivial. Our party mows through the canon fodder without spending much resources... but we get completely stonewalled by anything above our level.
I only had 1 campaign in 2nd edition yet, but rules as written, I don't see how we could have a different experience.
But party is well balanced. We are all experienced TTRPG players. I don't see this as a "user error".
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Name of PC: Caillin
Class/Level: Sorceror 10
Adventure: Tomorrow Must Burn
Catalyst: Her greatest fear (Phantasmal Killer)
Name: Luna
Class/Level: Bard 10
Adventure: Tomorrow Must Burn
Catalyst: Outnumbered magic blasts and bleeding
Story: With multiple Scarlet Triad attacks blunted and their agents traced back to Tanessan Tower, the 'Heroshanks' (sorcerer, bard, rogue, and fighter) went to the college after a night's rest (with a familiar keeping an eye on the place to ensure no one was trying to escape in the night. The bard clairvoyance'd a couple of times inside and was able to discover that the kidnapped men and women were being held on the top floor of the tower, so with a quick fly up to the top and some set ropes the party was ready to attack the triad members from above.
Laria and several slaves were able to be quietly freed without drawing attention, but when the Triad members on the eighth floor heard a loud window smash a fight began. Unfortunately, right at the end of the first round Barushak emerged and cast Phantasmal Killer on the sorcerer who had just electrocuted a dwarf with a shocking grasp. A crit-failed Will save later (even with a hero-point re-roll) and then a failed Frot (itself re-rolled with the rogue's Halfling Luck) and the party was suddenly one woman down from the outset.
They kept fighting fiercely, but between the numbers disadvantage and the wizard being free to harry them safely with black tentacles and multiple allies separating him from the party the bard found herself working hard to keep the rogue and fighter upright. Eventually she was separated and cornered by two velstracs, and when a fireball blast brought her down the bleeding cuts did her in too.
Eventually the rogue and fighter were able to cut down the mooks and get close to the wizard, almost killing him before he was able to dimension door away. With Triad alchemist from below beginning to approach, they grabbed their fallen comrades and fled out the windows to bring the full city guard down on the tower.
Whoa. That hasn't been my experience (or from what I've read, the experience of most groups unless they're playing something written by Jason Bulmahn!I kid, but I'm very interested to hear what you're running that has a PC death list sessions?
I'm running Age of Ashes and a conversion of Hell's Rebels plus a homemade game for my podcast, and no deaths so far in any of them.
I don't know what to say. The new crit mechanics heavily favor GM characters. An average midboss character 1 level above the party level has 5% more crit chances and 5% less chances to be crit, 10% at some other levels if the stat boost kicked in.
In the same vein, this system made encounters below the PC level completely trivial. Our party mows through the canon fodder without spending much resources... but we get completely stonewalled by anything above our level.
I only had 1 campaign in 2nd edition yet, but rules as written, I don't see how we could have a different experience.
But party is well balanced. We are all experienced TTRPG players. I don't see this as a "user error".
I've actually heard that about a number of Paizo published AP's, I don't think your group is unique.
I have bad feelings about how my 2e Hell's Rebels book 1 boss fight will go.
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Name of PC: Toland
Class/Level: Wizard 11
Adventure: Tomorrow Must Burn
Catalyst: He should have known better than to roll low four times in a row.
Story: The party had already rescued the hostages and fought the Scarlet Triad mooks, but Jagakki remained so they went after him. Fighting through the bears and giants Jaggaki hit them with cloudkill, and the wizard responded by lobbing several fireballs into the room Jaggaki was in while the champiopn and rogue cuut a path through the giants. Toland darted through the cloud to get away from the poison damage and Jaggaki threw a flesh to stone at him. Toland had his own prepared and attempted to counterspell: rolled a 2, hero point changed that to a 1. Then for his save he rolled a 4, exactly critically failing the save. When his turn came around he rolled his next save and got another 4. The rogue then got a critical hit with analyze weakness up off on Jaggaki and earned a spot as the prime target when he comes back.
Even though the party cleric fixed it the next day with stone to flesh I'll still count it as a death.
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Name of PC: Garren
Class/Level: Swashbuckler 13
Adventure: Fires of the Haunted City
Catalyst: Victim of the soul chain
Story: The party handled the Forge Spurned pretty easily in the Hidden Forge, but they bombed on their identification rolls for the soul chains, so thought they were just really nice +2 greater striking flaming adamantine spiked chains and decided to keep them. There were six players, so they fought two forge-spurned. Of the two, one player made the save handily, but the other failed, then failed on his racial reroll(catfolk), then failed a third time on his hero point reroll. As this was the player who had the previous week told me that he likes a more lethal game, he underwent a transformation at dinner that night. The PCs handled the single Forge Spurned in the bar with the help of a new friend who jumped in in a timely manner.
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Name of PC: Oan Wescran (an alias)
Class/Level: Fighter 8
Adventure: Cult of Cinders
Catalyst: An astonishing number of failed fortitude saves
First encountered at the gold mine, Hezle the kobold alchemist escaped during the chaos there and fled to the Fortress of Sorrow. When the party breached the inner sanctum of the fortress (weeks later in game time) Hezle was ready. With Oan being the most obvious target, Hezle scored a hit on him with her first shot of the encounter. For six rounds he attempted to fight off the effects of the wyvern poison that was coating the bolt, but ultimately he succumbed. He went all the way to stage 3 and back down to stage 1, bouncing up and down several times but never fully recovering. His allies healed him but they had no counter for poison. Coupled with several blasts of fire from the dragon skull, he eventually fell unconscious (but only after getting off some epic moves while poisoned, including shoving Belmazog into the molten gold, which pretty much sealed her fate), and as anyone who has played P2 for any length of time knows, having persistent damage while dying is a very quick way to perish.
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Name of PC: Zim
Class/Level: Fighter 7
Adventure: Cult of Cinders
Catalyst: Charau-ka Butchers with Naunet assistance (also not resting!)
Having taken out most of the mine's cult members (and befriended Hezle), the party decided to drop Gerhard's bombs (and a fireball) onto the Dragon Pillar. This removed the weakest obstacles, but angered the Naunets, who flew up to attack. The remaining cult members climbed after and eventually surrounded the party. Zim standing in the forefront (and having been critically stunned by the pillar), unfortunately, was a major target, but thankfully the only one to die. His oracle friend Ortzi survived thanks to Hezle and the party was able to take the butchers out. The naunets, seeing the party flee, lost interest as the pillar still stood.
The party has placed his body in a bag of holding, intending to revive him as they flee to Akrivel.
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not technically dead, but defeated so it should count:
Name of PC: Anastasiya Vrochi
Class/Level: Half-Elf Druid 8
Adventure: Cult of Cinders
Catalyst: Opening a door (and generally not being very smart)
Name of PC: Nobby
Class/Level: Halfling Fighter 8
Adventure: Cult of Cinders
Catalyst: Having Anastasiya open a door
Name of PC: Eliara
Class/Level: Half-Elf Cleric 8
Adventure: Cult of Cinders
Catalyst: Having Anastasiya open a door
Story: The party gathered to strike at the heart of the cult and assault the Fortress of Sorrow. They managed to distract Sweettooth with a lot of meat, but also critfailed on their stealth to get close and got the attention of the guarding boggards. Seeing their covert attempt blown, they just stormed inside... and awoke the golem. The Wizard managed to recall knowledge on it and learn its magic weakness. The Druid started flinging crushing wave at it with the Rogue stabby-stabbing. Then the druid did something that spelled doom for everyone: opened the door to the smithy and turned into a dinosaur. What happened next was the druid going down first and very quickly, then the fighter, then the cleric. A few of the boggards did die, but otherwise it was brutal (I did roll great too). The rogue managed to escape, and the wizard (after unsuccessfully trying to resuscitate Ana) followed suit while invisible.
I gave my players a choice: their characters would either die (and they'd simply roll new ones) or be captured by the cultists for interrogation (and the remaining heroes could recruit some temporary reinforcements to free their 'main' characters). They chose the latter, so we'll have some rainkin demon hunters extravaganza next week!
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oh yes it's a double post!
Name of PC: Sir Tusk Vukas
Class/Level: Orc Dragon Barbarian 7
Adventure: Cult of Cinders
Catalyst: Multiple puncture wounds
After successfully dealing with the surface guardians of the mine (released mokele-mbembe on the butchers, talked Hezle down, killed everything else), the party decided to tackle the mine itself.
The first move was the Melltyn the wizard dispelling the dragon pillar's magic. Then it all went kinda downhill. Two naunets and a azuretzi (added since I have 5 players) instantly dimension door'ed to the wizard and dropped him to 0 HP, while the miners charged up the ramp. Dyri the ranger dropped down to set up some snares, but was quickly surrounded and knocked unconscious along with his wolf. Tusk the barbarian and Greeble the rogue were valiantly fighting everything coming their way, with Jinx the alchemist healing them with his medicine and potions, but there were just too many.
With just a single charau-ka butcher, the azuretzi, and a few boggards and worms remaining, and everyone in the party at dying at least once, Sir Tusk Vukas finally succumbed to a lucky critical hit from the butcher's trident. In total, Tusk was dealt about 350 points of damage and was Wounded 4 at that time.
The rest of the party managed to survive and defeat the last of the cultists, thanks to the rogue having some cleric spells and the alchemist climbing down and getting the ranger back up. They were left with a grand total of 35 Hit Points between all of them.
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Name of PC: Eva
Class/Level: Caydenite Warpriest 4
Adventure: Hellknight Hill
Catalyst: Critical failure vs. Vampiric Touch
Story: They tried to capture Voz, after bringing her down to low HP they tried to use non-lethal attacks to capture her. This caused her to live for another turn due to the -2 to attack roles and she used Vampiric Touch in a desperate attempt to survive and the cleric unfortunately rolled a critical failure and lost her life due to the death effect.
Funnily enough she shoved Alak down from a box (Voz was using Spider Climb) so she could hit her with a rapier and that caused her to be in position for the Vampiric Touch.
Alak and Eva had some theological discussion about worshipping evil deities like Asmodeus in the past and since her death he did think a lot about his position and might convert to Abadar instead.
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Name of PC: Mangor
Class/Level: Warpriest of Ragathiel 18
Adventure: Broken Promises
Catalyst: Breath Weapon and evil dice gods
Story: Running back to the keep in time to see the lesser manifistation coming out of the sky, an epic battle was fought around the keep.
With everyone hurt, they were in bad shape when the dragon let loose a blast of elemental energy. Sadly, a critical failed save later Mangor found himself bleeding out on the ground.
The party alchimist had a hard choice, get the fighter standing next to him back in the fight and let him bleed for one more round or doom the fighter to go down next round while only healing the fallen cleric a little.
He chose wrong, for when it came down to death save, he rolled a 1. His last hero point already spent.
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Name of PC: Rohesia
Class/Level: Fighter 8
Adventure: Cult of Cinders
Catalyst: Death by Chimera
Name of PC: Kek
Class/Level: Sorc 8
Adventure: Cult of Cinders
Catalyst: Death by Chimera
Name of PC: Najra
Class/Level: Monk 8
Adventure: Cult of Cinders
Catalyst: Death by Chimera
Name of PC: Jata
Class/Level: Druidc 8
Adventure: Cult of Cinders
Catalyst: Death by Chimera
Story: Yup... TPK. The last stronghold is just very difficult and they faced off against 2 Chimera under the shell of Dahak. The DM rolled really well.. open rolls no fudging, This was very difficult area with the players having close call after close call which each encounter before they were finally bested. Did someone say this AP was a meat grinder?
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Name of PC: Jinx
Class/Level: Ratfolk Alchemist (Chirurgeon) 11
Adventure: Tomorrow Must Burn
Catalyst: Death through Multiple Wounds and Persistent Damage during the fight with Barushak and his goons
Story: the group was assaulting the Tanessen Tower, and one of the scarlet triad poisoners managed to flee and alert Barushak. Of course, all hell broke loose. Most of the bloody combat took place on the stairs, where both the evangelists, thugs and the heroes (sans the invisible wizard) were grouped. Barushak, however, skirted around and flew in from the other side. His two Cones of Cold, along with the persistent bleed from his velstracs were enough to put poor Jinx down. As he was the main healer, there was not much the others could do, and after exhausting all possible battle medicines and potions, the brave ratfolk finally bled to death.
His body was preserved by magic and returned to Breachill and buried in the graveyard of the Great Dreamhouse, where he was raised and lived before taking part in the ill-fated adventure.