[3.5] my first TPK

[Apophis775]

So, here's what happened:

The group had 3 people (waiting for someone else to arrive, and they decided to start early).

So, they kill the gnoll leader fairly easily. Then, they opened a door to a hallway looked down and didn't see anything (i told them it was dark, but they got distracted by a nearby closed door).

Anyway, they go and break two doors down which were locked (and had just collapsed hallways behind them). And as they turn back to the opened one, a ghast pops out from the darkness. They engage it, but 2 of them succumb to the paralysis. One of them lasts long enough for 2 evil clerics to run in and fight with the ghast, but he gets paralyzed shortly after.

2 of them are then coup-de-graced by clerics, and the other one is eaten by the ghast.


My first TPK.

Here is our current wall-of-shame/Graveyard:

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c127/freeyourmind775/IMAG0034.jpg

[Geigan]

The wall of shame amuses me. :smallbiggrin:

It reminds me of the player owned count my players kept for some reason while we ran the Tomb of Horrors.

[Apophis775]

It's a record of the deaths within their group for this single adventure.

[Geigan]

So are they still continuing the adventure then? How you working them in?

[Apophis775]

luckily, 2 party members were back at town, so they are just gonna hire some more random guys to replace the dead ones.

Besides the 3 who died in the dungeon, they also lost 2 clerics.


One was laser-blasted by a small blue dragon after dealing it some damage, and the other was squished by an bunch of ogres (Literally 5 minutes after rolling him, and on a small side-quest, so fast actually, that he didn't re-roll, but was just a new person to save time).

So, the 2 in town are the only remaining original character (a tank), and the 2nd replacement cleric (who they had to leave a safety deposit with the church in order to bring him with). They were in town because they were late to the session and said to just have them wait in town. Otherwise I'd have to try and get a new hook and adjust some stuff to show what the other group had accomplished.

[Titanium Fox]

I am stealing this wall of shame idea. It's brilliant. Completely brilliant.

[Otherworld Odd]

It seems sort of... cruel to make your last PC fight against not only the ghast that whipped up on the other two party members but also throw two clerics into the mix. It's kinda like you wanted to kill them. =/.


But yeah, I enjoy the wall of shame idea.

[Archwizard]

It seems sort of... cruel to make your last PC fight against not only the ghast that whipped up on the other two party members but also throw two clerics into the mix. It's kinda like you wanted to kill them. =/.


But yeah, I enjoy the wall of shame idea.

Paying better attention to the darkness probably would have been a good idea....

[Otherworld Odd]

Paying better attention to the darkness probably would have been a good idea....

Casting magic missile on the darkness still wouldn't have stopped them from getting their asses whipped.


Edit: Plus my comment was directed to the point of time where two of their party members were already paralyzed and dying, not when they were herpa derping around in the dark.

[Titanium Fox]

Casting magic missile on the darkness still wouldn't have stopped them from getting their asses whipped.


Edit: Plus my comment was directed to the point of time where two of their party members were already paralyzed and dying, not when they were herpa derping around in the dark.

IMO, it's partially their fault for hopping into the campaign early. The party should have known what they were getting into by being a man down. Also, if the Clerics were there and known about, then it would have been some massive DM cheese to say that they got out of the scrape alive. The story goes on beyond the "active" TPK, and frankly in the world of adventuring, stuff like this would have happened.

As much as you need to please your players, you need to keep the world immersive as well. I think the important question is: "How did the party take the TPK?"

[Thrice Dead Cat]

While I'm sorry to hear for your party's loss, your little Wall of Shame has further inspired me to get off my lazy butt and finally run that campaign I was planning on running to finally shut up those old formerly 2E, now 3.XE grognads at my local hobby shop.:smallamused:

[Kaeso]

OH wow, a wall of shame?
That's sooo cool :smallbiggrin:

[Otherworld Odd]

IMO, it's partially their fault for hopping into the campaign early. The party should have known what they were getting into by being a man down. Also, if the Clerics were there and known about, then it would have been some massive DM cheese to say that they got out of the scrape alive. The story goes on beyond the "active" TPK, and frankly in the world of adventuring, stuff like this would have happened.

As much as you need to please your players, you need to keep the world immersive as well. I think the important question is: "How did the party take the TPK?"

My assumption from the description would be that they just popped out of nowhere. I think letting the last guy go toe to toe with the ghoul and then leaving would have been a good thing to do. If he continued further... well then, there's when you throw the clerics at him. If he tried to drag his buddies out, the clerics would probably come by just from the time that would take and probably the noise of it. I think losing two guys and letting the last one out alive (albeit if he survived the ghoul AND decided to leave afterwards) would have been suitable punishment. Besides, I'm not attacking him or his game so you guys can stop defending him now. O_o. It's just my opinion.

[OverdrivePrime]

Love the wall of shame. A friend of mine keeps a "Poor Bastards" list of PC's that have died under his watch. :smallbiggrin:

[Delcor]

Walls of shame are cool and all, but there should be a seperation of shame and heroic deaths, maybe if the characters keep fallin, you could eventually have a wall of shame, and a wall of fame. IMHO :)

[Otherworld Odd]

Walls of shame are cool and all, but there should be a seperation of shame and heroic deaths, maybe if the characters keep fallin, you could eventually have a wall of shame, and a wall of fame. IMHO :)

^ Like this idea. I may steal it.

[Honest Tiefling]

My players are bigger then me, so I might have to refrain from this. I will probably consider a spectacular death hall of fame, however.

I wonder if these bodies are in any condition to become undead...Or Deathless.

[Delcor]

My players are bigger then me, so I might have to refrain from this. I will probably consider a spectacular death hall of fame, however.

I wonder if these bodies are in any condition to become undead...Or Deathless.

I like the idea of making player's dead characters into the next villian, but it may not be as good of an idea with all your players being bigger than you :smalleek:

[Otherworld Odd]

My players are bigger then me, so I might have to refrain from this. I will probably consider a spectacular death hall of fame, however.

I wonder if these bodies are in any condition to become undead...Or Deathless.

Nah, you get a bonus to AC, it's all good. =P.

[Jjeinn-tae]

Welcome, you are now officially a DM. :smalltongue:

Remember the moment, for the first is the best time, it only goes downhill from here.



Ok... I've only killed... three PC's total I think, not counting random crits at level 1-2 (that would be cheating). But it looks like you are taking this as a badge of honor, may your wall be graced with many more sheets then. :smallbiggrin:

[Killer Angel]

The group had 3 people (waiting for someone else to arrive, and they decided to start early).

Anyway, they go and break two doors down which were locked (and had just collapsed hallways behind them). And as they turn back to the opened one, a ghast pops out from the darkness. They engage it, but 2 of them succumb to the paralysis. One of them lasts long enough for 2 evil clerics to run in and fight with the ghast, but he gets paralyzed shortly after.

Sooner or later every DM will do a TPK.
I could only say that a monster able to paralyze (followed by reinforcements), against 3 characters, it's a very dangerous situation, and TPK wasn't indeed a so remote possibility.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

Sooner or later every DM will do a TPK.
I could only say that a monster able to paralyze (followed by reinforcements), against 3 characters, it's a very dangerous situation, and TPK wasn't indeed a so remote possibility.

This makes me realize, that, as a DM, when doing a dungeon crawl, while having fun and interesting abilities on my monsters is a necessity, I need to remember to focus mainly on having things that either won't hit most of the party or that most of the party can save against so as not to get to a TPK by bad luck.

[Killer Angel]

This makes me realize, that, as a DM, when doing a dungeon crawl, while having fun and interesting abilities on my monsters is a necessity, I need to remember to focus mainly on having things that either won't hit most of the party or that most of the party can save against so as not to get to a TPK by bad luck.

Yes, SoD / SoS effects, can be very nasty, 'specially when dealing with a group of 3 PCs. One failure on the ST, reduces the group's effectiveness by a larger amount, than the same situation but with 4 or 5 PCs.

[Starbuck_II]

So, here's what happened:

The group had 3 people (waiting for someone else to arrive, and they decided to start early).

So, they kill the gnoll leader fairly easily. Then, they opened a door to a hallway looked down and didn't see anything (i told them it was dark, but they got distracted by a nearby closed door).


None of them had Darkvision or a Torch?

[Mauther]

I had a DM back in college who required a drawing of the PC before he would let them enter play. I thought he was only using them to help us visualize the party, but at the end of the semester (a brutal deadly dungeon crawl where we all lost multiple PCs) we showed up for the final game. Once we sat down to play, he killed the lights, turned on a projector, and started a slide show of all the fallen PCs with their age and manner of death (Belisten the Bold, Age 28, Burned to death in the maw of the red dragon Vistiluan), all the while with Bette Midler's Wind Beneath My Wings playing. He also included some random NPCs, bartenders, goblin red shirt, familiars, etc. God, Chris was a bastard, but we laughed our asses off.

[Apophis775]

It seems sort of... cruel to make your last PC fight against not only the ghast that whipped up on the other two party members but also throw two clerics into the mix. It's kinda like you wanted to kill them. =/.


But yeah, I enjoy the wall of shame idea.

Oh, he wasn't alone, they had gone back to town and replaced their original lost cleric. It was three of them, and they managed to kill one of the clerics and the other was just about dead. Really, had they not left the door open after peeking in (even with me hinting "Your gonna leave the door open?") they would have been fine.



Casting magic missile on the darkness still wouldn't have stopped them from getting their asses whipped.


Edit: Plus my comment was directed to the point of time where two of their party members were already paralyzed and dying, not when they were herpa derping around in the dark.

He had many chances to run, not to mention his chaotic evil nature. It's sort of an "inside joke" that most of the ghasts they run into are his childhood friends. He had thought it more prudent to move his Flaming sphere and blast the one cleric instead of escaping, and his party-mates thought it a good idea to run at the ghast one at a time style.



None of them had Darkvision or a Torch?

Thats the best part, they ALL had light sources, but they were worried about alerting something down the hall.

Also, Each previous ghast encounter i told them of a horrible stench. This time I also did, but they apparently hadn't put 1+1 together, nor did they realize that it was the stench forcing them to get sickened.





Anyway, they returned with fresh characters to the dungeon and found that the clerics had made their escape (retreiving all of what the PCs had, including a very expensive decorative staff that the PC's had taken from an NPC they killed). I think their new characters will have a bit better luck though.

[Flame of Anor]

None of them had a brain?

Fixed that for you.


I think their new characters will have a bit better luck though.

I'll take that bet :smallbiggrin:

[Archwizard]

Thats the best part, they ALL had light sources, but they were worried about alerting something down the hall.

Also, Each previous ghast encounter i told them of a horrible stench. This time I also did, but they apparently hadn't put 1+1 together, nor did they realize that it was the stench forcing them to get sickened.

This right here says it all. It's not a character failing, it's a player failing. I'll take the bet too. :smallamused:

[Ruinix]

Yes, SoD / SoS effects, can be very nasty, 'specially when dealing with a group of 3 PCs. One failure on the ST, reduces the group's effectiveness by a larger amount, than the same situation but with 4 or 5 PCs.

totally agree. what about SoS AoE ? personally im with the idea that the DM never ever should make missuse of that kind of tool/weapon.

for my group the DM throw on us black evard tentacle followed of cloud kill ¬¬ an later he said he didn't want to make a TPK.

____

love the ideas of shame and honour walls.

[Apophis775]

Considering that the group had already dispatched at least one ghast and some ghouls without much of a problem (both times, only one person was paralized), I didn't expect them to just keel over and die. Also, I suggested to them many times that we should take a break and wait for the guy running late (the cleric), and they INSISTED on going anyway (One of them fancied himself a healer as he had use magic device and a wand of cure light).

[Hatchet91]

Having been the first person to be slaughtered in this campaign it has been a fun experience the whole way through no one in the group was upset by the tpk and in our defense the one person who wanted us to wait for them has had a tendacy not to be on reliable side when it comes to figuring out what time he will arrive and it only gets worse when he doesnt have his own vehicle (like then )

[DiBastet]

That's a nice hall of shame. Our hall in the current campaign stands with 5 KIA (3 by the same player), 1 WIA and 7 MIA (4 by that same player...).

And know that we're a drama-heavy group. This player isn't very happy, but he's got faith.

[Etrivar]

WIA? Wanted? :smallconfused: