Spoilers for book 2
So my party has made a not great decision. They are trying to stay the night in the lower level of the Eos Athletics Club in book 2. The mechanic and quartermaster are dead, but the boss and the room full of troops are still there, plus they didn't explore the tunnels much at all so its easy to get reinforcements, as it is known they are there due to noise and the cameras.
I let them turn the sentry turret trap into 2 turrets they can reposition. One is aimed at the tunnel in the top left room (E2). One is in the narrow hallway pointed east (E5). They are trying to sleep in the locked room (E3), which has really good locks, but the boss has a key.
They are beat up, getting low on RP, and totally out of spells. The boss is too smart I feel to let them rest. The turrets will take some of them out, but realistically will just end up being a warning that they are likely to be attacked soon. The boss will request reinforcements, turrets get overwhelmed, and they are surrounded in a room with no way out.
Yeah, they made a bad call, and probably need to suffer from it. It's easy to say this was absolutely a TPK decision. Im still trying to come up with a scenario where they have a chance to get out of there and it doesn't feel like I brought out the kid gloves.
My best idea so far is to have the basic guys to investigate and trigger the turrets a couple times, and then have them regroup for a bit to plan and get reinforcements, hoping the party uses that chance to escape. If they dont take that chance though, I dont see much of a way out.
Thoughts?
My group did the same, though in a different room.
Some options off the top of my head:
Thanks for the ideas, I will certainly use some combination of these.
I appreciate it.
Well.... That went terribly.
I mostly went with your second suggestion. The turret went off multiple times. I had it kill one of the sulis. Then they threw a few grenades down the hall to destroy the turret. I was praying they would run away. Nope. Way too stubborn, I should have known.
At this point, they decided to exit the north door, and loop around to be behind the turret, not thinking the explosions destroyed it. They quickly shifted, moving the north turret to face down the left hallway, where the mercs and suli headed. After a round or so, the turret was gone, the mercs and suli were dead, while the boss and her cohort had gone through the room they slept in, sneaking up behind them. I thought maybe I could scare them, with the hall cleared, they had an easy path to the vehicles they already reprogramed and could use to escape easily.
Jalusann appears behind them with a supercharged rifle, blasting two of them for nearly 30 each (5 players btw). They were full , and this wiped out their stamina. Shock and awe hopefully. Nope. They also did not learn the lesson to not stand in a line.
I'll admit I was getting a bit flustered. I didn't want it to go this way, but didn't see a way out that wouldn't feel like I handed it to them. They also had some pretty bad rolls when it mattered.
What I went with eventually, was having Charrel completely loose it at finally being in combat. She basically had a psychotic break, and since Jalusann saw the group as no threat at all, pretty much told them to gtfo. Before this happened, I still managed to crit two with the rifle, knocking one unconscious with the burn, knocked another unconscious that would not get out the the way of her getting to Charrel, and when she was tending to Charrel and ignoring them, the vanguard ran in to keep fighting. He has a f@!# ton of health still, so didn't feel bad attacking back...
Crit with the solar brand... Our vesk is now without a hand.
At this point things were breaking down, even out of character I was basically asking them how the hell do I convince them to run away? They do as Jalusann tends to Charrel.
Stopped there obviously.
As for why I want to avoid a TPK... Not sure we are ready to handle it to be honest. I think at least some of my players would be upset. Im still not the best at coming up with ideas so bringing in a new set of characters could be tough (Though actually thinking about this situation, would be super easy) I know the threat of death is important, but no one really enjoyed tonight. It was kind of frustrating for everyone. Jalusann being so much harder than everything before this didn't help. Not to mention, fantasy ground loves having me roll 20s and them roll 1s.
That just... sucked.
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Sad to hear that this session didn't went so well.
I never played DoF so I can't help especially to this, but I experience your problem myself multiple times (players act like players and not as their characters would).
And even if this sounds harsh: killing of some characters helped a lot. It showed the players that there is no "reload" button and that their actions (or inability learn from their mistakes) have consequences.
There are also options to build onto a character death or TPK, here are some examples:
1. you have a semi TPK, two characters are really dead, the others only unconcious. They awake in a cell, together with two unknown characters (the new PC). They now have to plan their escape, together and start over from zero.
2. One character dies, his body is recovered. A long lost brother/daughter/love intrested (new PC) shows up at his funeral and ask the players if they will revenge the character death.
3. TPK: A new crew stumbled across the drifting spaceship of the former group. On board they only find some logs which gives a summary and points them toward some mystery (aka where the last adventure ended).
Tying the new character via some emotions to the group can create a nice touch to it and also give the group motivation beside "money" or "we simply want to complete an AP".
Also speak to your players, explain them that their action will have consequences. I had a DM once who also shys away from killing a character, to a level where it was anyoing ("How much hp do you have left? 5? Oh, that is lucky you only get 4 dmg from this Ogres attack").
After we talked to her, and explained that killing of characters is ok for us and it's part of the game. She slowly managed to change her "no PC killing" policy and since then the games get better and better.
P.S.: I wouldn't try to convince them to run away at all. BUT I would talk to them BEFORE the next session and explain that their actions will have consequences, which could also include death, if they play stupid...
I tend to find that once a player is involved in a tpk, they tend to start avoiding situations that end in a tpk in the future.
As a GM in Pathfinder I have had a couple TPKs, usually due to me being the 'creative' or strategic player with exception luck with the die.
One time a TPK effectively ended the campaign... the players were just stunned and lost interest, a little disapointed but fair game. The other I had them make secondary characters and rescue their first group, which they liked. It also allowed them to play with different classes which think helped.
As a player I have been on the other end of it. Had a GM who didn't like killing characters which takes some of the fun from my view. I am also the one who tends to loose characters the most, usually due to stupidly 'heroic' actions, like a Half orc bard jumping down a pit to 'straddle' a white dragon so draw its attention from using its breath weapon an our trapped casters, or my cleric trying to distract an Ogre from assaulting the casters, got critted and died...
I think you did the right thing of warning the players in a way that the brown is about to hit the fan but if players refuse to take the advice, unfortunately you have to just let them deal with the clean up.