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| Ask a Shoanti |
 Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 4:53 pm Post subject: Near TPK War Stories - How Close to the Line? |
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Joined: 11 Oct 2008
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Here's a fun Question for those among us who love to reminisce.
How close have you ever brought a party to a Total Party Kill without crossing over?
How close was your closest call? |
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| varianor |
| Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 5:17 pm Post subject: |
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| How about...five out of six PCs dead? And the sixth really low on spells, partially wounded, and out of healing potions? |
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| Wolfgang |
| Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2008 8:37 am Post subject: |
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Kobold Overlord
Joined: 30 Dec 2007
Posts: 4987
Location: The Mines
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Yeah, all but one. This was in the Giants series, mind you.... And the party had decided that a frontal assault was the way to take out the Fire Giant King.
I'm still not sure what they were thinking.
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Wolfgang Baur
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| Ask a Shoanti |
| Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2008 11:29 am Post subject: |
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Damn, that’s close guys! I can’t even come close to 5 of 6.
Here’s one of mine below anyways. It’s a 3.5 tale for those among you who care about such things.
Our story begins with a cleric, rogue, barbarian and a wizard. But the player operating the cleric has a night shift at work and can’t make the session. So the players decide to leave the cleric resting-up at the camp they set up as we ended the prior session. Who needs healing right? They can always hike back for it.
The rogue, barbarian and wizard venture forth into the nearby crypt. The first major encounter is an ambush by a psychotic spider-like creature. There’s no surprise round, but the monster still drops the wizard to -7 early on. Fortunately, the barbarian manages to pull-off the old ‘pour-the-cure-light-wounds-potion-down-the-gullet’ and the wizards back to -1 and stable.
But the barbarian’s generosity costs him. The beastie takes his attack of opportunity followed by a full attack and our barbarian is down to -3 and dropping. It’s looking dark – literally because there’s no light sources left.
Some careful maneuvering later, our rogue manages to dig the last cure light wounds potion off of the body of the wizard and transfer its contents into the stomach of the dying barbarian. He’s at -5 when everybody’s favorite green liquid drizzles down his throat. But then more ill-luck strikes: the die roll is a 4 (1d8+1) and the barbarian only makes it to zero hit points.
Worse our besmirched rogue is now down to 3 hit points as a result of getting wailed on during all of this fancy footwork. Since our DM (me) is known to be cheap enough to whack fallen party members on the ground, the rogue decides the best move is to lure the monster away from her comrades. She leads the creature all the way out of the crypt and then turns on the speed hoping to lose him in the woods and then double back later to rescue her fellow party members.
But thanks to Wolfgangs’ awesome chase rules in Dungeon, it doesn’t quite work out that way. The psycho spider-thing chases her all the way to the outskirts of the camp site. The rogue is no match for the spider creature in her condition and is totally out of tricks. Two desperate rounds later she’s at -4.
Meanwhile our barbarian at zero is taking single move actions to try to get over to the camp to help. A bit of metagamming perhaps, but he’s not sure what he’s going to do when he arrives anyways. Anything useful will put the barbarian back into negatives. Basically he’s stumbling home in a delusional state of pain.
Then suddenly the door bell rings.
The player for the party cleric shows up – off work early. He’s never been so appreciated in his life. Even everybody’s favorite DM of evil is forced to rule that the cleric has just woken up and heard the battle. Just before the rogue is swallowed, he bursts on the scene and takes on the beast solo.
But the dice go cold and several rounds later the cleric is dropped too!
Just as the DM starts to clean-up his dice in disgust, the barbarian shows up at zero hit points. He rages! With his extra Con he stays up just long enough to bury an axe in the spider-thing.
Meanwhile the rogue drops to -9! Having failed a series of stabilization checks she has just one 10% chance left. Unbelievably she makes her very_last_chance - right on the wire.
The evil DM says the barbarian is unable to make a heal check in his berserk state; so he falls out of his rage and drops back to zero. He uses his standard action to make a heal check to stabilize the cleric. This in itself is another small miracle given his stats. But now the barbarian is at -1 and dropping. And there’s nobody left.
-2
-3
-4
-5 and stabilized! (Heck he had 4 rounds to spare.)
Then the PCs all lie there on the cold hard ground, for a very long time, the wizard still alone in the dungeon.
Meanwhile the DM rolls to see if the vultures or wolves find them all first. . .
(Just kidding about that last part – it was a bug bear patrol.) |
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| Zherog |
| Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2008 11:40 am Post subject: |
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Well, I've had TPKs before. But the closest without actually getting there? Hmmm...
I once killed or disabled four out of five party members. And the one that was still conscious was the wizard. With no spells left. Oh, did I mention they were only 2nd level, so the wizard only had something like 6 or 7 hp at full health?
I don't remember what they were fighting, but it was a pretty easy encounter as I recall. The dice went terribly cold for everybody at the same time my dice got hot.
I also once killed five out of seven PCs while running a different group through Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. They made way too much noise during one combat, and drew the attention of guards and such in other rooms. The three that lived did so because they decided to tuck their proverbial tail between their legs and run.
But that has a lower kill percentage than the four out of five group. 
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John Ling
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| Wolfgang |
| Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2008 11:54 am Post subject: |
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Kobold Overlord
Joined: 30 Dec 2007
Posts: 4987
Location: The Mines
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I love the "ding dong cleric calling" story! Thanks for sharing.
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Wolfgang Baur
Publisher, Kobold Press |
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| ephealy |
| Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2008 12:43 pm Post subject: |
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When I was playtesting one of Greg V's 4e adventures, I had two virtual TPKs before getting half-way through the adventure. Each time, one of the PCs ran away 'to fight another day'. If that hadn't happened, my victory would have been complete.
I find that TPKs happen when parties don't work together (especially when they split up) and when they take on more than they can handle. There is a conceit amongst some roleplayers that leads them to believe that any situation their party faces can be overcome. My players have learned otherwise, of course, but each time I add a new player it's a learning curve until they realize their 1st-level fighter can not, in fact, defeat that Type V demon alone...
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Ed Healy |
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| Ask a Shoanti |
| Posted: Sat Oct 25, 2008 5:36 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah! The split-up is lethal.
I think this was one of the side effects of the ability to better design balanced encounters that came along with 3.0.
Splitting up was always a bad idea, but now it's almost a guaranteed death wish because whatever is behind that next door was designed to challenge the full party.
Sometimes I kinda miss the days where level inappropriate encounters were the norm. I feel like players who grew up with 3.0+ feel as though there is never a need for their PCs to flee because they are comfortable that the adventure is designed to be fair, just and appropriate for their abilities.
People seem to scout less and rarely assess the threat level. Whatever it is, you're supposed to be ready for it. |
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| Zherog |
| Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2008 8:29 am Post subject: |
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| Ask a Shoanti wrote: |
| Sometimes I kinda miss the days where level inappropriate encounters were the norm. I feel like players who grew up with 3.0+ feel as though there is never a need for their PCs to flee because they are comfortable that the adventure is designed to be fair, just and appropriate for their abilities. |
Heh. Whenever I start a new campaign, I remind my players that sometimes retreat is the best tactical solution to a problem. I inform them up front that the world isn't designed to make their life easy -- that some random encounters (especially while traveling) will be out of their league, for example.
Interesting side effect of that... I one time had a dragon fly over head while they were doing something. It was intended just as a little piece of flavor, sort of like when a jet flies overhead and the shadow passes over the ground. My players scattered like roaches after you turn on the light! 
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John Ling
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| varianor |
| Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2008 12:11 pm Post subject: |
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Oh yeah. I'm old school, so I usually completely ignore EL and CR at my whim. The players don't notice the difference, and appreciate the really hard fights all the more.
So, what issue of Dungeon were those chase rules in please? (My collection is very spotty.) |
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| tiger_tim_gamer |
| Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 9:07 am Post subject: |
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As a GM, I have never had a TPK, and as a player, I have never been in a group that had one.
From the GM end, I think it’s because while I started with old-school style games, I quickly switched to other games and they were played in a more ‘cinematic’ style (where the player is the ‘ big damn hero’, and these heroes rarely need to run from an encounter).
For a lot of years, I stayed with the cinematic style mostly as a GM. Eventually, as a player, I got back into old school play at a local convention. But, I was lucky enough to meet up with some brilliant players. While I am sure had I been party leader, we would have had blundered (or foolishly charged) into some TPK’s, smarter players called the shots and while we did not totally avoid deaths, we did not give the GM any help in getting them either:)
Ask a Shoanti, loved your story. I think what I liked the best was how hard all your players worked to keep each other alive. That’s one good group you got there. |
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| Ask a Shoanti |
| Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2008 5:43 pm Post subject: |
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Joined: 11 Oct 2008
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| tiger_tim_gamer wrote: |
Ask a Shoanti, loved your story. I think what I liked the best was how hard all your players worked to keep each other alive. That’s one good group you got there. |
Thanks Tiger - I will be sure to pass your compliments along to my group.
Funny that I've always seen them as throw-in-the-towel-softies. You see, back out West I used to beat my old 2E group black & blue and they'd always keep on coming. They never quit. They were kinda like Rocky and I guess I miss them. I outta post a war story on their behalf too.
You know, I guess these new kids are actually developing some spine under my gentle tutelage of arbitrary pain and I guess I never stopped to appreciate it. Thanks for that. |
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| Aeolius |
| Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2008 5:55 pm Post subject: |
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Joined: 15 Oct 2008
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Location: NC
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I have had a TPK reboot scenario on the back-burner for years, now; reincarnating the entire party as small forest animals. As my players know this, they seem quite motivated to keep their characters alive.
"Nature of the Beast": http://www.lobi.com/nob/ |
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| tconnors |
| Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2008 8:42 pm Post subject: |
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| Ah yes, the famous "let's split up" theory. The party deciding to split up is about as likely to help them survive as running naked through all the rooms they haven't visited yet. I'm laughing right now because I have distinct images of friends' Neverwinter characters retreating to unvisited rooms and then running past my character with a comet trail of monsters in tow. ...good times. |
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| Lilith |
| Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 3:14 pm Post subject: |
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Joined: 01 Jan 2008
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| tconnors wrote: |
| I'm laughing right now because I have distinct images of friends' Neverwinter characters retreating to unvisited rooms and then running past my character with a comet trail of monsters in tow. ...good times. |
Ah yes. Also known as "TRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIN" |
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