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View Full Version : Of Tpks and, uh, more TPKs.



Lord Loss
2009-08-10, 04:02 PM
Tales of TPKs. Epic Fails at Epic Levels? Whole parties laid low at low levels? Basically, trade tales of TPKs over the metaphorical campfire whilst roasting imaginary marshmallows in an imaginary forest. With us virtual Playgrounders. Confused yet?

AstralFire
2009-08-10, 04:03 PM
I have yet to TPK a party.

I have not been a player long enough in any campaign to be part of a TPK.

d13
2009-08-10, 04:09 PM
Never TPK'd, never been TPK'd

Still...

Very lucky when rolling dice + Starting to DM a RHoD campaign + Planning not to fudge ANY dice roll = Probably you'll be hearing from me soon xD

Lord Loss
2009-08-10, 04:14 PM
:smallbiggrin: Believe me, not fudging is fun. The Ogre hits... Natural Twenty... How much HP Does your rogue have? Uh, 15, Why.

Blackknight1239
2009-08-10, 04:22 PM
Oh, my party was TPK'd last night. A big ol' Monkey Construct decided to come to life, and kill us. It worked.

Lord Loss
2009-08-10, 04:59 PM
0_o Do describe that. It sounds... um. Y

Forbiddenwar
2009-08-10, 05:20 PM
Been part of a near tpk. plot: villian is a lost little girl in a maze, we are suppose to save, she acts happy to see us, then:

Rogue: I'm using my scrying mirror on her.
DM: (realizing the scrying mirror should never have been given to the low level party, since it lets the rogue see the true form of the "little girl") crap. Well, this is what you see. (shows rogue pic in book) She takes two steps and (rolls dices) and kills you. Everyone else roll initiative, you just saw this little girl rip the throat out of your friend.
Me: RUN away
Dm: (rolls dice) she kills you and the druid on her turn.
Barbarian: I rage and attack with my great hammer. I full power attack. (rolls a Nat 20) great, rolling again to confirm the crit (rolls another nat 20) umm
DM: Roll again. If it is another nat 20, it is an instant death.
Barbarian: (rolls another Nat 20)
DM: the barabarian smooshes the little girl into a very small greenish meat patty. And we have to quit now, while I try to figure out the exp on this. No way in hell you should have survived a battle with her.

We jumped from level 4 to level 7 (yes I know that isn't RAW)

Myshlaevsky
2009-08-10, 05:22 PM
Quite a few deaths when I sit on the other side of the DM's screen, but not many TPK's. I don't like ending the story.

I've had one, though. The PC's attacked a dragon when they really weren't ready for it and refused to retreat. It killed them all.

I've been TPK'd once, as well. Not much to say about that one. We tried to sneak into the "Den of the Troll King" and it all got pretty catastrophic. Noise is not the friend of a thief.

Xallace
2009-08-10, 05:34 PM
Near TPK. Party of 4 vs Skindancer, 3.5 game.

1st Down: Half-Giant Barbarian. When the Skindancer hits with any melee attack it gets a free trip attack, and the barbarian kept getting knocked prone. For some reason, he never tried crawling out of its reach before getting up again, he'd just keep trying to hop up right beside it; well, the Skindancer hit him with an AoO every time, knocking him prone again 'til he died.

2nd Down: Raptoran (Archery) Fighter. Rolls a Nat 1 on his attack, his Shocking/Thundering Bow backfires, unstrings itself, deals electricity and thunder damage to him, and deafens him permanently (last time we use fumble charts...). Raptoran, weaponless and deaf, lands on the roof of a building nearby as he didn't carry a back-up weapon and felt useless at that point.

3rd Down: Human Druid / MoMF. Puts up a good fight against the Skindancer, but the Skindancer slips in a lucky crit and knocks the druid down to 1 HP. Druid climbs up to the top of a building to escape the beastie.

4th Down: Elven Fighter / Champion of Corellon. Gets grappled by Skindancer, decides to set off the 48 remaining charges in his Helm of Brilliance on top of him (my inability to understand WBL is pretty notorious, hence why he had one in the first place). Somehow made his save against the charges, and had Evasion. Takes out an entire city block, obliterates the skindancer, comes out without a scratch.

Only one died, sure, but I'd say there were enough close calls to count as a near-TPK, at least.

Evilfeeds
2009-08-10, 05:36 PM
TPKed the party once, via plot. They all got raised as zombies next adventure. (DM fiat > raw)

Oh, and once when the cleric fell to a giant spider, the tank decided to keep fighting rather than run away (despite several hints that this was a bad idea). When he inevitably died, he threw a massive wobbly, and killed my motivation to ever GM again. I like to think the rest of the party died shortly after, giving the campaign a nice sense of closure.

sofawall
2009-08-10, 05:48 PM
Near TPK. Party of 4 vs Skindancer, 3.5 game.

1st Down: Half-Giant Barbarian. When the Skindancer hits with any melee attack it gets a free trip attack, and the barbarian kept getting knocked prone. For some reason, he never tried crawling out of its reach before getting up again, he'd just keep trying to hop up right beside it; well, the Skindancer hit him with an AoO every time, knocking him prone again 'til he died.

Died from bad rule-reading. You can't trip someone as they're getting up. you interrupt the action, so they haven't gotten up yet, so they're still rone, so you can't trip them. Strike one.


2nd Down: Raptoran (Archery) Fighter. Rolls a Nat 1 on his attack, his Shocking/Thundering Bow backfires, unstrings itself, deals electricity and thunder damage to him, and deafens him permanently (last time we use fumble charts...). Raptoran, weaponless and deaf, lands on the roof of a building nearby as he didn't carry a back-up weapon and felt useless at that point.
Ah, the famous critical fumble houserule. As you so adroitly noticed, it sucks. Hard. Strike two.


3rd Down: Human Druid / MoMF. Puts up a good fight against the Skindancer, but the Skindancer slips in a lucky crit and knocks the druid down to 1 HP. Druid climbs up to the top of a building to escape the beastie.
Druid's near death is fair, no rules broken. Strike two remains.


4th Down: Elven Fighter / Champion of Corellon. Gets grappled by Skindancer, decides to set off the 48 remaining charges in his Helm of Brilliance on top of him (my inability to understand WBL is pretty notorious, hence why he had one in the first place). Somehow made his save against the charges, and had Evasion. Takes out an entire city block, obliterates the skindancer, comes out without a scratch.

Only one died, sure, but I'd say there were enough close calls to count as a near-TPK, at least.
Holy hell, Helm of brilliance, and he made the saves as a FIGHTER? His awesome alone removes the need to give you a strike.

However, you won, so it wasn't a TPK, in fact, it wasn't even close (although if he leveled a city block, how did the Raptoran and the Druid not die?). Anyway, I give that strike three. Entertaining, but not a good TPK.



:smalltongue:

Umael
2009-08-10, 05:53 PM
Been part of a near tpk. plot: villian is a lost little girl in a maze, we are suppose to save, she acts happy to see us, then:

1) How did the "little girl" know the rogue was seeing her in her true form?
2) What WAS it, anyway?

Moofin Bard
2009-08-10, 05:58 PM
Ahhhhh TPKs.

Never DMed one or been part of one. But I watched one go down.

Jeff (DM): HEY EVERYONE THERES ABOUT TO BE A TPK OF MY PARTY!

Then we watch as one by one, the rust monster takes everyone down because no one had a non-metal weapon and the magic-users were rolling epic fail rolls.

Eldariel
2009-08-10, 06:00 PM
Latest TPK I experienced was our 2-man party of Dervish & Warlock facing a Wizard Lich of ~our level or one or two higher. This was around level 15. First turn, our Warlock shot himself thanks to some variety of Ray Deflection, I whiffed my attacks thanks to Ironguard and the Warlock got hit by Anti-Magic Ray. He failed his save. Yes, we tried to run. Yes, we died.

Though I almost survived under invisibility running the streets of Sigil (I got far enough that his True Seeing couldn't locate me anymore...but there were only few ways I could go and he tossed a Fireball in my general direction and I was so low it was enough to kill me in spite of my successful Reflex-save). This had to do with the Lich's laboratory we happened upon (we found a door to a maze of traps so of course we had to see where it goes!) searching our inn room in Sigil.

ZeroNumerous
2009-08-10, 06:02 PM
Then we watch as one by one, the rust monster takes everyone down because no one had a non-metal weapon and the magic-users were rolling epic fail rolls.

No one had a fist? That seems a bit counterintuitive to being a fighter-type.

Xallace
2009-08-10, 06:03 PM
Entertaining, but not a good TPK.



:smalltongue:

Then I consider myself fortunate if my worst TPK isn't a TPK at all. :smallwink:

Kaihaku
2009-08-10, 06:09 PM
I've only been involved in one near TPK and that was caused by some OOC fighting. The sniper and GM had a fight, so the 'gloves' came off and got replaced by spiked gauntlets. Then the sniper and I had a fight, so the team ended up working against each other even as the challenge rating flew through the roof... It wasn't a true TPK as the technician survived but everyone else died.

So I suppose I've never been in a TPK, unless you count a railroaded TPK where the DM killed all of us intentionally so he could resurrect us as a plot point.

Forbiddenwar
2009-08-10, 06:45 PM
1) How did the "little girl" know the rogue was seeing her in her true form?
2) What WAS it, anyway?

An etherreal Doppelganger, if memory serves.
I can't remember exact how the little girl knew. Either it is a part of the etherreal dopplegangers attributes or she made the scrying check and saw the rogue use the mirror and put two and two together.
we were all weak after just barely getting away from a demon.
It would have worked out if we stayed on the rails. And it still worked out after all.

zarakstan
2009-08-10, 06:52 PM
On the player side of things I had a very near experience to TPK. It ended up that only the ape companion of our parties' wildshaper (homebrew) managed to stay up and he managed to free a paladin who subsequently pwned everyone.

Carden
2009-08-10, 07:26 PM
My parties have so far been completely immune to TPKs, no matter how hard I try. Now, on the flip side, parites I have been a part of have consisted almost totally of TPKs. Mainly due to the fact I'm the only one that understands CRs. Case in point:

Two level 1 adventurers venture into a forest looking for alchemical ingredients for an eccentric wizard, hoping he will portal us to where we need to go. My sister is DMing, so everything is a little off kilter. She flips through the monster manual and tells us this, "Alright, you're now being attacked by a Chimera and a Unicorn." CR 7 and 3, opposed alignments attacking us. Yeah, she also gave us no chance to run. I think I lasted for 3 turns trying to climb trees for safety. This is a prime reason for not picking monsters based on how "cool they look", as she put it.

Thus the reason why I DM for my friends.

Myou
2009-08-10, 07:35 PM
I came horribly close today. I was running an attack on Seawell from the Wrecked Ashore module by lizardfolk with class levels and some magically enlarged and zombified tanks (not actual tanks).

My player, a gestalt Wu Jen 4//Tweaked Monk 4 (it's just me and him) tried to take the whole force on at once to protect the village and my character ((Wizard 3//Homebrewed class that's a bararian without offensive abilities but a bit more endurance)) backed him up with mage armour and the like.

He was quickly surrounded by about 20 of them, ranging from basic ones straight out of the MM to the two giant undead ones which I thought were CR 4 but seemed more like CR 6

The first few rouds went well, he took a few hits from javelins and claws, etc, but still had most of his HP, but after a few more AC boosting spells most of the lizardfolk were no longer able to hit him, so I had their leaders co-ordinate them to use Aid Another to help the two huge undead.

That was +10 to the attack rolls of both undead, who were making 3 attacks a round.

He took 50-odd damage, blasting through his temporary HP from magical items, and was left on 0 hp, but luckily his Body of The Sun spell killed all the mooks that same round, so it was just the two huge undead, which I distracted while he used healing potions. Even so, we finished the fight with him on 6 hp.

Since I was out of spells by the time he took the hits that brought him to 0, if he had taken even 1 more poit of damage it would have been a TPK.


Looking back I think that perhaps Aid Another only give that bonus to one attack roll that round.

Frosty
2009-08-10, 07:38 PM
Hopefully she's a better DM now, your sister?

Carden
2009-08-10, 08:01 PM
Oh, no, not at all. Mainly because she's never wanted to DM again, but, then again, it's doubtful we would let her if she did. There's just something wrong with her mind that she thinks DMs don't need an ounce of prep time. It scares me to even think about it... *shiver*

FoE
2009-08-10, 09:54 PM
I got TPK'ed playing in a one-shot back in 1E. But then, the DM (my oldest brother) was basically out to destroy us because we'd beaten his last adventure and then joked about it.

We were a group of low-level characters who'd just battled through an army of goblins, trolls and a spectator, a beholder variant that's supposed to guard an object but in this case was just hanging out in a corridor and ambushed us without warning. Anyhow, half the party was dead and the rest were down to single-digit HP when he dropped a white dragon, a frost giant and two orc and troglydyte chieftains on us. We didn't even bother rolling; we just gave up.

shimmercat
2009-08-10, 10:05 PM
I LOVE the story about the little girl in the maze. XD Wow.


Been TPK'ed once of note.

It's the big showdown. There is an artifact on display at the museum that we (a group of vigilants) know is supposed to be stolen by the big baddies of our game, so we set up a stakeout, along with our major NPCs (the chief of police and a reporter-bard). The big baddies show up, we spring our ambush, and roll initiative!

Fight goes as expected, until one of the baddies casts Wall of Flames, as we had been stupid enough to line ourselves up. The fighter, cleric (me), and illusionist all fail their reflex saves -- sucks, but it happens. Unfortunately, so did the monk. In fact, he rolled a nat 1. The monk who was wearing a Necklace of Fireballs, because we assumed that he WASN'T GOING TO BE FAILING A WHOLE LOT OF REFLEX SAVES (stupid, stupid, stupid...)

The Necklace failed its save. The museum exploded, killing the party, the major baddies, and our important NPCs, all in one fell swoop.

We woke up three weeks later, resurrected by some deus ex machina (all except the monk, who was announced disintegrated beyond recovery and the player had to roll a new character), to find that dopplegangers had taken our shape and had completely tarnished our reputations. :smallannoyed:

To this day, none of those players will go within 10 feet of a Necklace of Fireballs. :smalltongue:

Lord Loss
2009-08-11, 05:14 AM
What is a necklace of Fireballs, anyway?

PId6
2009-08-11, 05:42 AM
What is a necklace of Fireballs, anyway?
Link (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#necklaceofFireballs) 10 char

Talic
2009-08-11, 06:09 AM
A party I was DMing for was given a quest (at ECL 13) to negotiate the safety of trade routes in the area. They were sent to negotiate with an Ancient Red Dragon. They knew its age, and its power.

The dwarf totemist and halfling rogue came up with a plan to have the dwarf distract the dragon, while the rogue gathered items the dragon would value. They were then going to try to extort the dragon to garner the safety of the village.

The rogue had darkstalker. However, the dragon had a very good spot and listen modifier.

It wasn't pretty. But it was quick. My parties have learned that with my dragons? They aren't easily defeatable through shivering touch, etc.

They've also learned that when I put in an encounter that isn't status quo (non-CR appropriate), that there is a CR appropriate way to defeat the encounter. It's just not usually fighting.

Oh, and blackmailing and extorting things much more powerful than you? Not smart.

prufock
2009-08-11, 06:15 AM
Tomb of Horrors.

Swordguy
2009-08-11, 06:34 AM
My last one was in Mechwarrior 3e. The party was a group of mech pilots kicking around as a pirate/mercenary unit. All groundpounders - no spaceborne abilities at all.

So, during their transit from the garrison planet they just left to their JumpShip (to get out of the system), they passed their relief; a large unit called Hell's Black Aces...a group composed entirely of AreoSpace Fighter jocks who specialize in space ops. Turns out, one of the party members had an Enemy in HBA (the PC had killed the dude's little sister in battle), so he calls over via the radio to taunt the guy a bit. Taunting turns into personal insults, and the PC eventually goes verbally after the whole unit of HBA.

"I'm going to kill you and everyone you know. I'm going to hunt each of you Black Aces bastards down and exterminate every one of you. I'm gonna kill your families, just like I killed [enemy's] sister. And I'm starting now."

He pulls his sidearm and tells the guy at the ship weapons console to shoot at the HBA's ship. The poor scared schlub does so (scoring a pretty good hit just as the two ships exit weapons range), and about 5 minutes later, 50 HBA areospace fighters come swarming in and blow the party's ship into oblivion. Best part? The idiot PC is the only one who got to an escape pod, and instead of riding it back to the planet, he jury-rigs the emergency radio to continue broadcasting epithets and insults. So the HBA Enemy turns back around and smokes the escape pod. TPK.

Morquard
2009-08-11, 06:46 AM
The idiot PC is the only one who got to an escape pod, and instead of riding it back to the planet, he jury-rigs the emergency radio to continue broadcasting epithets and insults. So the HBA Enemy turns back around and smokes the escape pod. TPK.
He gets bonus points for that though :)

Surfing HalfOrc
2009-08-11, 06:59 AM
TPKed my 8 year-old-son, my friend, and myself on our first encounter...

Three member adventure team, chasing a girl kidnapped by pirates. Followed the pirates to a small island, landed on a secluded beach. Crabmen suddenly attacked from behind the rocks as the party began to move into the jungle. A series of 20's for the crabmen, and 1's for the party, and the adventure was almost over before it began!

As DM, I decided that the crabmen liked their food cooked, so took the party back to their camp for a lobster boil... One concealed knife later, our very battered and tattered party slips off into the jungle to heal up over night.

The rest of the adventure is going much better, but the beginning has kept us from ever regaining full HP for everyone. The beginning started so fast no one had time to buy potions of healing...

Fitz
2009-08-11, 07:32 AM
near TPK

using the unearthed arcana generic classes in a desert setting, we get ambushed by some nomadic drow (variant location based i think) one by one the ambush takes down all the party members apart from the serval animal companion my warrior had. it then proceeds to pounce and rake rolling nothing less than an 18 for any to hit roll, and max damage each time, it killed 2/3 of the drow ambush on its own due to insane luck, then gradually the party came round from stabilisation!

DM hated the cat for the rest of the campaign and complained constantly that it was overpowered (3rd - 5th level, and the serval got no druid leveling bonus' just very very lucky with its rolls, while my fighter rarely got above a 10 on to hit)

Fitz

Lord Loss
2009-08-11, 07:47 AM
I'm giving my PCs a Necklace of Fireball...

Brauron
2009-08-11, 08:22 AM
Almost had a TPK last night.

The party decided to wait until nightfall before infiltrating a Hobgoblin fortress, and erected a Leomund's Tiny Hut within view of the fortress to wait in. There's a knock at the door (the player who cast it and I both missed the bit in the descriptive text about the Hut being transparent to those inside it, so it was opaque), and when they opened it, they got hit by a Fireball. They made their saves, except for the Cleric, who was reduced to 1 HP.

Awaiting them outside was a Hobgoblin Warmage, very haughty, who made a quick speech about how the Hobgoblin King was sending an emissary of peace to meet with the NPCs the party is working for. Our Ranger sensed he was lying and the party went on the offensive.

the Fighter charged the Warmage, thus drawing his ire and protecting the rest of the party from my planned second Fireball. The Fighter distracted the Warmage long enough for the Ranger to nock and fire a Goblinslaying arrow. One failed saving throw later, the Warmage is dead.

If he hadn't failed the save, we'd probably have had some dead party members a round or two later.

Fixer
2009-08-11, 09:19 AM
Tomb of Horrors.I survived that one!

Of course, I didn't KNOW it was Tomb of Horrors until I was preparing to run that particular dungeon and I read some of the entries and went, "hey, wait a minute, I've played through this before.... oh, crud, I am SO glad I made that saving throw..."

Darwin
2009-08-11, 09:45 AM
I've had plenty, I don't fudge rolls and I rarely give hints when the group is in trouble. TPKs often happen very early in my campaign, I remember the very first encounter of a short dungeoncrawl adventure, the group met a small number of rats. A cave-in had taken a good chunk out of the group's health, and as they had failed to pre-purchase any healing they were screwed, the rats tore them to pieces.

Another TPK came from an adventure's second encounter. The farm where the group was sleeping for the night came under attack by three orc raiders, they hear the orcs discussing at the front door, and they ready themselves for the encounter. The biggest orc charges the door, into the small hallway and utterly destroys the first PC with a 12 on his damage roll. The rogue being a coward hides under a table, as he watches the rest of the party go down against a single orc raider.

Needless to say, my group always expect the worst from the seemingly innocent encounters. :smallamused:

Master_Rahl22
2009-08-11, 10:05 AM
I've never been in a TPK as groups I've been in have always been smart enough to realize when we're up against something we're not supposed to fight. Depending on what it is, we may try diplomacy type stuff, or just plain run away. The one exception to this was one guy playing a paladin-type LG character with 6 Int. The bad guy showed up and killed the elf we were supposed to protect, and told us to bring the one cleric in the world high enough level to cast Resurrection to a certain location in a month. Lawful Stupid guy decides he can't just sit there and let him do that, so he attacks, only to be Disintegrated. The rest of us realized real quick not to screw with this dude if we hadn't already known. :smallbiggrin:

Gnaeus
2009-08-11, 10:28 AM
Hmm. Several over the years.

There was one at the end of the Against the Slave Lords series (1st Ed), where the party has been captured and escaped (by DM fiat for plot), but the casters have virtually no spells, no one has any equipment but what you find wandering through this cave, you can't rest because you are on a volcanic island that is about to blow, and then to leave the island you have to fight the Slave Lords, a party of seven or eight evil characters of about your level, while you still have no spells and terrible gear. That was ugly.

Then there was the semi-TPK where one player didn't understand that part of being on watch involved waking up your fellow party members, not hiding while they get murdered in their sleep.

There was the Horrid Dire Tiger that I threw against the party because they had been regularly stomping monsters of the same CR, which devoured the fighter in 1 round and then pursued his fleeing friends. (That might not have been a TPK, one player may have escaped, can't remember). I would have fudged it, but that group of players HATED fudged rolls.

Then there was the drow lair, where the party allowed a couple of drow to escape, then got ambushed while they slept by the drow counterattack force.

Those are the ones I remember most clearly. Mostly either circumstances where the party cannot retreat, or the encounter is too well balanced and they think they can pull it out, but by the time they realize they are in trouble it is too late to flee.

Thrawn183
2009-08-11, 10:32 AM
I had one the first time I DM'd.

An evil party, high power, level 13. They were auditioning to work for the Dread Emperor so he set them through an arena (I wanted the PC's to learn to work together). First they went up against 4 level 10 orc barbarians. They absolutely demolished them. Then they went up against an Iron Golem and didn't do so hot because the two casters that were the vast majority of their power didn't have anything they could do. Then they went up against a 15th level cleric. Both sides had prep time so the cleric enterred with 12-15 buffs cast. Turns out that between the 3 casters in the party, not one had dispel magic. I had already decided that the party would be resurrected if they lost, their performance really just determined what kind of reward they got.

The last session I ever played in. Level 18: 1 rogue, 1 cleric (me), 2 rebalanced paladins, 1 soulknife.

We had already battled out way through a fortress, so we started where we had left off the previous session. We fought 3 liches. The DM ruled that superior invisibility+the IotSFV veil that blocks diviniations made one of them completely undetectable. We only won because our opponents literally ran out of spells trying to kill us (rebalanced paladins? Way, way too strong).

Anyway, at the end of that fight we each had a vision before enterring the next room that told us that to proceed was certain death. Now, at this point the only spells over 5th level that I had left were Prismatic Sphere and the one that lets you switch places with a Leonal Guardinal. The soulknife and I agreed that we really shouldn't proceed. One of the paladins, the DM's boyfriend, rammed us into going anyway. Walls of Force popped onto the walls, the entire room was dimensional locked and a bunch of demons and devils with AMF's popped in and slaughtered us. Our MacGuffins took form and killed the demons and devils, ress'd us and then left without talking to us.

The soulknife and I had decided to switch out our characters, but the DM refused so... that basically ended the campaign.

Lord Loss
2009-08-11, 02:19 PM
Survived And TOH in the same sentence? Do my eyes deceive me? TPKs in there don't count as TPKs because it's impossible to not TPK! Bows to fixer.

Jack_Banzai
2009-08-11, 02:38 PM
Been playing D&D and various other RPGs for about 25 years now, so a lot of TPKS... let's see.

The most recent TPK was at the end of the prewritten adventure in the back of the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide (4e). I ran it for a group of level 1 characters. The last boss (an insane goblin Solo Controller shaman) slaughtered them all, except for the rogue, who gave up the objective (a magic dagger the boss wanted) and ran with her tail between her legs. All other characters were obliterated by the end of the first round.

There was a memorable TPK I DMed where I deliberately had my party encounter a mind-flayer (3.0). Their 1st level characters were obviously outclassed, and they had several options: dialogue, bargaining, surrender, or just plain running away. The fighter lost patience with the dialogue and started a fight, and they all ended up eating it hardcore.

Almost TPKed in the Thunderspire (4e) module. Through a series of bad decisions and accidents our 2nd level party ended up fighting a huge encounter against an ogre, wargs, duergar, drakes, and a lot of 'em to boot. My warlord was down to 2 hp and everyone else was at 0 and dying, when I laid down my spear and surrendered, promising our cooperation if they let me tend to my companions. I did and we escaped from prison later after some healing was done. Recovering our equipment was a huge pain but we got there in the end.

Myshlaevsky
2009-08-11, 02:46 PM
Almost TPKed in the Thunderspire (4e) module. Through a series of bad decisions and accidents our 2nd level party ended up fighting a huge encounter against an ogre, wargs, duergar, drakes, and a lot of 'em to boot. My warlord was down to 2 hp and everyone else was at 0 and dying, when I laid down my spear and surrendered, promising our cooperation if they let me tend to my companions. I did and we escaped from prison later after some healing was done. Recovering our equipment was a huge pain but we got there in the end.

That encounter is actually known for the possibility of becoming nightmare. If I remember correctly positioning ends up being pretty important.

Jack_Banzai
2009-08-11, 02:50 PM
That encounter is actually known for the possibility of becoming nightmare. If I remember correctly positioning ends up being pretty important.

Not surprised at all.

ArchaeologyHat
2009-08-11, 03:06 PM
Had one in WHFRP where due to some pretty awful rolling from just about all the players and amazing rolling by the GM (me) I managed to wipe out a party on an encounter that was supposed to be the quirky miniboss squad.

Basically, the first deaths were caused by the player Wizard catastrophically miscasting and blowing both himself and the tomb-robber next to him into next week leaving the Elf Kithband Warrior (Kind of rangery elfy-class) and the dwarf Shieldbreaker (Kind of tanky dwarfy-class) facing a hunking Black Orc boss and his goblin shaman pet (and a few random greenskin mooks). I'm pleased to say they put up a valiant effort and even killed the goblin and some of the mooks. But I'd balanced the encounter around there being four of them and the Black orc was the supposed big-bad of all of act 1 so had to be a credible threat the first time they met him.

I kind of chickened out, not wanting to have to write a whole new campaign and had the real big-bad, a crazy necromancer-vampire-thing appear and drive off the orcs as the Elf and Dwarf lay bleeding on the floor on 0 Wounds having taken a number of scarring critical hits.

The vampire turned from a Necrach - Kill all the Living to a Blood Dragon - Honour over Reason noble demon very quickly.

Morphamagus
2009-08-11, 03:55 PM
My one DM never really understood how powerful magic is, or how to balance encounters. Around level 5 or 6 our entire party got hit by FOUR chain lightnings at once from storm giants. This was after the frost giant leading them had gotten a few good swings in on our swordsage. We all went down.

Several sessions later, our now level 10 or so party gets ambushed while on the road. During the surprise round we got hit by nine successive fireballs, all which did average or greater damage.

Alejandro
2009-08-11, 04:10 PM
Ahhhhh TPKs.

Never DMed one or been part of one. But I watched one go down.

Jeff (DM): HEY EVERYONE THERES ABOUT TO BE A TPK OF MY PARTY!

Then we watch as one by one, the rust monster takes everyone down because no one had a non-metal weapon and the magic-users were rolling epic fail rolls.

No one had fists and feet? I mean, I would at least try to punch, kick, or grapple the thing if I was dumb enough to not have any suitable backup weapons at all.

Moofin Bard
2009-08-11, 05:19 PM
Eh probably. But they were all DnD noobs.

BTW:
Note on Fireball Necklaces:
Our DM had us find some sort of necklace in an Evil Campaign and my bard girl had to carry it. And it was intelligent so it kept whispering naughty things to her. And to activate it's power she had to say 'My horny level's rising'.

So make your necklaces intelligent!

Frosty
2009-08-11, 05:22 PM
Eh probably. But they were all DnD noobs.

BTW:
Note on Fireball Necklaces:
Our DM had us find some sort of necklace in an Evil Campaign and my bard girl had to carry it. And it was intelligent so it kept whispering naughty things to her. And to activate it's power she had to say 'My horny level's rising'.

So make your necklaces intelligent!

And you were ok with what the DM was doing? :smallconfused:

Milskidasith
2009-08-11, 05:22 PM
That's disturbing, yet hilarious.

Moofin Bard
2009-08-11, 05:24 PM
Hell yeah. We're all good friends so it's funny. Even though he REALLY made ME say it and I really didn't want to. He wouldn't just let me say 'She says the phrase'.

quick_comment
2009-08-11, 05:55 PM
Honestly, that doesn't really sound like excellent DMing to me, more "let's harass the female D&D player". Especially since it sounds like you weren't comfortable with it at the time and the DM explicitly disallowed your workaround.

Swordguy
2009-08-11, 06:13 PM
Honestly, that doesn't really sound like excellent DMing to me, more "let's harass the female D&D player". Especially since it sounds like you weren't comfortable with it at the time and the DM explicitly disallowed your workaround.

That sounds like a bunch of friends screwing with each other in a comfortable social setting. Did you miss the exchange, "you were ok with what the DM was doing?", "Hells yeah"?


Got another TPK story. Just happened in last weeks L5R game. We're playing a bunch of loyal samurai, who've been abducted in our sleep and taken to the main hall (not tied up or anything, just under guard). Right there is the Scorpion Clan Daimyo about to assassinate the Emperor. GM thought we were gonna stand by and watch it happen. Not so much. We took on about 75 heavily-armed and armored samurai bare-handed and got wiped out for our trouble...because no real samurai would sit by and watch the emperor get smoked without doing something. "Your life for your lord" is one of the primary tenents of the game, after all. To be clear, had the Emperor died, we would have been honor-bound to seppuku anyway.

The GM was evidently expecting us to go ronin and embark on a lengthy quest to avenge the Emperor's death, forgetting that 5 of the 6 of us (the last person was a monk) were playing character who would specifically never go ronin. Do or die, as it were.

Johanas
2009-08-11, 08:33 PM
I was gearing an encounter with the intent of seriously maiming a PC or two, and had a whole massive epic encounter lined up for my players. The paladin, at level 3, was doing an average of 15 damage a round. He rolls very well, and power attacked with his masterwork greatsword. A lot. So I need something with lots of hit points. Worked out a great encounter. And the party died fighting the boss's five goblin minions outside the cave. Never ever saw the BBEG. A group of 4 CR 1/3s killed my PCs. Five level 3 PCs...at full hp, with the full knowledge combat was coming. *sigh*

Moofin Bard
2009-08-11, 10:18 PM
Honestly, that doesn't really sound like excellent DMing to me, more "let's harass the female D&D player". Especially since it sounds like you weren't comfortable with it at the time and the DM explicitly disallowed your workaround.

Honestly? I was fine with it. I was just a little embarrassed saying it because there may have been one or two hot guys around the table that I may be attracted to. And there was another female in the campaign as well.

Tar Palantir
2009-08-12, 12:16 AM
Never quite a TPK, but DMed one so close it was glorious.

The party, level 10, consisted of Nexas, dragonborn sorcerer/elemental savant of fire (the most powerful PC by far); Greg, dwarf knight/dwarven defender (heckuva tank, but didn't bother to pick up a magic weapon until level 9), Elonin, human cleric (basically a gimp healbot, no one but me will play a decent cleric), Aramil, wood elf ranger (decent damage, nothing special), Adrian, human crusader (did nothing significant except die spectacularly all campaign), and Ambriel, elf rogue (most useless character I've ever seen in my life). Their opponent was a druid lich, sequestered in his mummy-filled lair.

Combat starts. Nexas lets fly with his patented super-fireball (MM cheese energy admixtured searing fireball of fire, 20d6 of fiery doom). Nothing happens, courtesy of a Flame Ward cast after the party teleported in, lit a few dozen mummies on fire, and teleported back out to heal. BBEG hits half the party with an Arc of Lightning, killing Adrian outright. Greg moves in and uses Combat Expertise and a Defending weapon to boost his AC to 40+. Aramil piddles about uselessly, possessing no weapon capable of beating lich DR. Elonin casts Prayer. Ambriel moves in, hoping for a flank next round (she had a magic longsword capable of critting and sneak attacking undead).

Round two. Nexas, on the defensive, flies up above Elonin and activates blade barrier from his robe, surrounding himself (and the touch-range healbot) with 15d6 of whirling death. BBEG responds with a Baleful Polymorph, turning him into a squirrel (though he made the Will save, for all the good it does him). Greg tries a Knight's Challenge, forgetting that undead are immune to mind affecting effects. Elonin tries a Searing Light, but misses. Aramil positions himself to flank for Ambriel. Ambriel completes the flank, but misses the attack (not surprising, considering the BBEG was wearing dragonhide full plate and her weapon wasn't finnessable).

Top of the round. Nexas, thanking whatever fruity god Elonin worships that Teleport has no somatic components, saves his own sorry ass in the hopes of finding a cleric with Break Enchantment actually prepared in time to rejoin the fight. I say it takes him 3 rounds. If the party can live until then (or better yet, dispel the Flame Ward), they could still pull this off. Heh. BBEG hits Elonin with Extract Water Elemental, killing him. Greg drinks a potion of Bull's Strength, hoping the boost will help him overcome the lich's DR. Aramil rolls surprisingly well on his greatsword damage, dealing a single point of damage to the lich. Ambriel fumbles her attack and drops her sword. I'm laughing my ass off.

Round 4. BBEG hits Greg and Aramil with another Arc of Lightning, knocking Greg to 0 and Aramil to 1. Greg drinks a potion of CMW. Aramil tries to trip the lich. Despite having no investment in tripping, he succeeds. Ambriel picks up her sword and makes a single attack (with sneak attack from the flank). She crits. Rolls near max damage, both regular and sneak attack. Things are looking a little better.

Round 5. BBEG dismissed Flame Ward to call down a Flame Strike, hitting everyone, including himself (no other way to hit more than one standing PC). Greg dies, hard. Aramil and Ambriel both evade. BBEG takes 63. Aramil tries tripping, gets hit by the AoO, and dies. Ambriel feints (with Improved Feint), and succeeds in scoring another sneak attack. Another critical hit sneak attack. BBEG goes down.

Round 6. Nexas gets back. He and Ambriel take the loot and bodies back to town, and manage to buy True Rezzes all around (in hindsight, nearly a hundred minions with +1 weapons wasn't a good idea). So close to TPK it wasn't even funny. My party made me swear to never use a druid again as DM. It was exquisite.

Skorj
2009-08-12, 12:27 AM
My favorite TPK as a player: we were playing Space 1899 (great game, BTW, though we used a better combat system from a different game). We had found a powerful ancient artifact, on Mars IIRC, that was somewhat damaged: a pistol that could take out a ship, or a Zepplin, or a castle wall with 1 shot, but had about a 10% chance of instead detonating when fired.

We knew this would cause a TPK, so we had a protocol when we needed to fire it: the whole party would hide in hard cover, and one lucky volunteer would run out about 30 yards and fire the thing at whatever incoming overpowered ship/beastie/flying castle had looked at us funny. That way when it eventually went kaboom, only one party member down. All well and good, until in the middle of one such attempt some opponents broke from concealment and attacked us in melee. We rush to rescue the guy with the pistol, but for some reason he decides to use it as a melee weapon. Bang, boom, TPK. :amused:

Fortunately for the campaign, the bad guys actually needed us as prisoners, and so rezzed us themselves. Our GM was good enough that I've never been sure whether he made that up on the spot.

Lord Loss
2009-08-12, 06:05 AM
The Funniest TPK ever (and the only one i remember now, though more will come if my brain starts working) was when we were level six against six Kobolds and an Inevitable (I forget which) at the edge of a cliff. At the bottom of the cliff was nothinges, meaning to fall is to have one's soul ahnillated.

Round 1: Roll initiative (I wasn't the best player, I'd taken Improved initiative three times)

Me:I go up to the first kobold and hit him. (Rolls) 1!

Dm: Roll for Epic Fail... er, fumble

Oh. Ahhww... Rolls... 1!

You drop your Vorpal Rapier, and it falls into the Nothing.

Me: But, the elven legion gave that to me, you cant!

DM: Hehehehe That thing was, WAAY strong. And the Kobold gets an attack of opportunity, due to fumble, and grapples you.

(Rolls 8) Dm (Rolls 20)

Me: Crap?

DM: He pushes you towards the edge. make another grapple.

Me (1)

DM (20)

Me: Well, damn!

The rest of the party gets mauled by the Inevitable.

We all die.