Worst TPK yet?

[Rossebay]

I've never actually experienced a TPK, honestly. In our 3 to 4 DM's, we've usually been able to handle whatever situations were thrown at us, but I got to wondering, aside from the ever-present Rock Falls, Everyone Dies, what sorts of TPK's have you guys experienced?

Who caused it, was it intentional, and how did you guys handle it?

[maximus25]

We had been shrunk because we drank potions of shrink. It was me and 4 others, don't remember exact classes and races. We were small enough to fit in a mouse hole because that was the only way to progress. A mouse was attacking us, so me and this other guy got the brilliant idea of dispelling the magic on just his shield while it was in front of us because the mouse was raping us. So we did it, and collapsed the tunnel on top of us, killing everyone. Everyone was pretty mad at us :smallbiggrin:

[Gnaeus]

I have DMed a couple. Originally through misjudging actual power of encounters because I was looking at CR before I knew better. The one that I feel the worst about was siccing a Horrid Dire Tiger on a party that was regularly dropping CR 8-10 encounters in a couple of rounds.

Round 1: Tiger wins init, Pounce. Drops Tank.
Party casts some spells
Round 2: Pounce. Drops Cleric. Fight is effectively over.
Rounds 3+ Tiger chases down Wizard + Rogue.

More common, in my experience, are the fights where they are actually closely balanced, but PC's roll badly, but they think they can turn it around in one more round. Fighter is hurt, thinks he can take it, goes one more round. Fighter goes down. Cleric steps in to heal fighter. Then party steps in to help cleric. Monster ends up with 5 hit points surrounded by corpses.

[Rossebay]

Yeah, we've had experiences like that where we have turned it around in that one more round, and it actually happens fairly often. Assuming we'll encounter something like that again, I'm going to suggest that we run more often, haha.

[Etrivar]

Our DM had a house rule that area of effect spells always efected the same volume of area even if they had to change their shape to do so (ie, a fireball normally goes to 20 feet in every direction. Under these rules, in a 10 foot wide hall, a fireball will go out to 10 feet wide, but 30 feet long). Our Sorcerer forgot this at a spatially inopportune moment, and incinerated the party. Killed the BBEG, but we were too dead to care.

[Lappy9000]

Shadows (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/shadow.htm).

I can't use them in a game without killing someone, it seems like.

[subject42]

Our DM had a house rule that area of effect spells always efected the same volume of area even if they had to change their shape to do so (ie, a fireball normally goes to 20 feet in every direction. Under these rules, in a 10 foot wide hall, a fireball will go out to 10 feet wide, but 30 feet long). Our Sorcerer forgot this at a spatially inopportune moment, and incinerated the party. Killed the BBEG, but we were too dead to care.

Wasn't that the actual rule in 2nd edition?

[Etrivar]

Wasn't that the actual rule in 2nd edition?

I don't know; never played 2ed.

[JonRG]

Feal'Thas cast Prismatic Spray at us. :eek:

- My ninja got turned to stone
- The kender rogue was teleported to the elemental Plane of Air
- The Master of Many Forms saved against poison, but then went insane. (Frickin' 8s)
- The elf wizard got zapped by lightning and died.
- The silver dragon monk saved against whatever ray hit him, but got Disintegrated immediately after.

Luckily, the Kender DM-ex-Machinaed a scroll of Widdershins and we got a do-over.

[The_Jackal]

I TPK my players routinely. Honestly, if you present challenging scenarios and use villains who fight smart, TPKs should be a reasonably uncommon occurrence.

[tyckspoon]

Wasn't that the actual rule in 2nd edition?

Yes, which is probably where his DM got it from. "Wizard toasted us all with an improperly calculated fireball spread/lightning bolt bounceback" was a pretty common story (also, lightning bolts would reflect from solid objects, so if you were good at pool/calculating angles you could get 2-3-4 hits on a creature in a tight space.)

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Most of the TPKs I've experienced came from fiat and were reversed by fiat ex machina. Such is life. When I play with GMs who are more 'by the book' the party is usually smart and resourceful enough to respectively realize they're outgunned and effectively retreat.

[Tetrasodium]

Wasn't that the actual rule in 2nd edition?

I think 2nd edition fireball was something like 1,600 cubic feet (not as big as it sounds) then 3rd changed it to the simplified radius/area because people kept thinking fireballs were like 1/4 mile death blasts

[Shadow Lord]

I think 2nd edition fireball was something like 1,600 cubic feet (not as big as it sounds) then 3rd changed it to the simplified radius/area because people kept thinking fireballs were like 1/4 mile death blasts

1,600 cubic feet is... big, to say the least. It is in fact a 1/4 mile death blast. That scares me. It makes me scared of 2nd edition, and slightly glad I never played it.

[Akto]

Worst TPK ever

New party all lvl 1, meeting a group of goblins, my mate tries playing a wiz for the first time, casts web, but forgot to read the spell description where it tells that it is an AoE spell and webs, not only all the goblins except one, but also the entire party, the one goblin not affected had a torch, our ranger thinks quickly and takes him out with a quick shot, unfortunatly when the DM rolls where the torch lands, the roll makes it so the torch lands in the web setting everyone on fire and TPK'ing the party... this was 10 minutes into the adventure... my mate has since then been forbidden to play casters :smallbiggrin:

[tyckspoon]

1,600 cubic feet is... big, to say the least. It is in fact a 1/4 mile death blast. That scares me. It makes me scared of 2nd edition, and slightly glad I never played it.

If you laid it all out in a straight line of single cube feet, yes, it'd be a quarter mile. However, it's a spherical burst. Your standard 5-foot D&D square contains 125 cubic feet. If you limited it to just ground-level, so it only spread over the lowest five feet, a 1,600 cubic foot volume would cover a little bit less than 13 full squares. Since it also spreads vertically, you're going to 'waste' volume burning empty air most of the time as well.. I think your standard airburst positioning of a fireball does actually turn out close to 3rd ed's 20-ft radius. You could squeeze some extra space out of the 2nd Ed version by targeting it at the ground so the lower half of the sphere gets added to the upper hemisphere instead, but I don't feel like doing that math.

[Shadow Lord]

If you laid it all out in a straight line of single cube feet, yes, it'd be a quarter mile. However, it's a spherical burst. Your standard 5-foot D&D square contains 125 cubic feet. If you limited it to just ground-level, so it only spread over the lowest five feet, a 1,600 cubic foot volume would cover a little bit less than 13 full squares. Since it also spreads vertically, you're going to 'waste' volume burning empty air most of the time as well.. I think your standard airburst positioning of a fireball does actually turn out close to 3rd ed's 20-ft radius. You could squeeze some extra space out of the 2nd Ed version by targeting it at the ground so the lower half of the sphere gets added to the upper hemisphere instead, but I don't feel like doing that math.

Huh. I stand corrected, in that case.

[HalfDragonCube]

1,600 cubic feet is... big, to say the least. It is in fact a 1/4 mile death blast. That scares me. It makes me scared of 2nd edition, and slightly glad I never played it.

Only if you lay out all the cubic feet in a neat line. It is reasonably compact when in a cube/sphere shape.

Edit: Ninja'd!

[Tetrasodium]

Only if you lay out all the cubic feet in a neat line. It is reasonably compact when in a cube/sphere shape.

Edit: Ninja'd!

I don't think you could shapeit yourself with anything short of wall of stone or similar, it expanded to fill an area or something I think. Wizards were careful not to cheeze the DM in 2nd edition because they pretty much could only improve their spellbook beyond the spells granted at level increase with what the GM decided to give them in scroll form

[Shadow Lord]

I don't think you could shapeit yourself with anything short of wall of stone or similar, it expanded to fill an area or something I think. Wizards were careful not to cheeze the DM in 2nd edition because they pretty much could only improve their spellbook beyond the spells granted at level increase with what the GM decided to give them in scroll form

Could you not buy a scroll in 2E?

[Xerinous]

My worst wasn't so bad as it might have been, because it wasn't technically part of the campaign. The DM wanted to see how our party mechanics would work before the campaign started. So we faced off against some orcs (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/humanoids/orc).

Not too threatening, nothing to worry about, right?

What we thought. Right up to the point where an orc pulls a max damage critical off on the monk. He was only missing like 2 hp...and it killed him outright.

Now, until that point, we'd been destroying these things. There were only two of them still alive at the time, and we managed to kill that one in the next round. The last, it turns out, was the Favored of the Dice Gods. We couldn't hit it, it couldn't stop hitting us.

Man that was ridiculous. One orc managed to wipe out the remaining four or five PCs. I still cringe a bit whenever that DM pulls out the orcs.

[Tetrasodium]

Only if you lay out all the cubic feet in a neat line. It is reasonably compact when in a cube/sphere shape.

Edit: Ninja'd!

I don't think you could shape it yourself with anything short of wall of stone or similar, it expanded to fill an area or something I think. Wizards were careful not to cheeze the DM in 2nd edition because they pretty much could only improve their spellbook beyond the spells granted at level increase with what the GM decided to give them in scroll form to give a bit more about cubic feet... a small 12x12' room with 7 foot high ceilings is 144 square feet or 1,008 cubic feet.
square feet=length*width
cubic feet= length*width*height

[Careless]

A level 4 party versus 2 Satyrs, on with pipes, one without. Turn one, Barb charges/kills Satyr w/o pipes. Satyr w/ pipes plays them, only the DMPC Cleric (me) saves. They don't like him already because he's Lawful and they're all forms of Chaotic. They kill him, then give the Satyr their food. He then flees and they decide to chase him instead of going to the nearby town. They eventually STARVE to death while chasing him...

[wuwuwu]

If you laid it all out in a straight line of single cube feet, yes, it'd be a quarter mile.

So, if I was a wizard with fireball, and the only way to enter my tower was a 1/8th of a mile long 5x10 hallway...

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

So, if I was a wizard with fireball, and the only way to enter my tower was a 1/8th of a mile long 5x10 hallway...If you're a wiz with that much real estate in 2e I'd think you'd have more fun with cramped, angled rooms + lightning bolt.

[Tetrasodium]

So, if I was a wizard with fireball, and the only way to enter my tower was a 1/8th of a mile long 5x10 hallway...

your still limited by range of the fireball & the blast goes both ways in that tunnel.. but your pretty darned close to it ;)

[CTrees]

So, if I was a wizard with fireball, and the only way to enter my tower was a 1/8th of a mile long 5x10 hallway...

1600 cu ft fills a 5'x10' hallway... to a length of 32'. Now, if I'm a wizard with gaseous form, and the only way to enter my tower is a 6"x6" "hallway" that's over a mile long... that's more fun.

[wuwuwu]

Oh, I misread the part where it's single cubic feet. Though my math sounded wrong... Yea, the lightning bolt plan sounds better :smallcool:

[Person_Man]

I allow players to take a homebrew Feat called "Danger Sense" or "Divine Guidance" or something similar, as appropriate for their character concept. Once per encounter whenever they take an action that inadvertantly harms themselves or another party member, they can cancel the action. They still lose an action, so they have to deal with some of the consequences of messing up, but they don't have to re-read the rules three times before casting a spell or try something heroic that ends up being stupid. It's a suprisingly popular Feat.

[Tetrasodium]

I allow players to take a homebrew Feat called "Danger Sense" or "Divine Guidance" or something similar, as appropriate for their character concept. Once per encounter whenever they take an action that inadvertantly harms themselves or another party member, they can cancel the action. They still lose an action, so they have to deal with some of the consequences of messing up, but they don't have to re-read the rules three times before casting a spell or try something heroic that ends up being stupid. It's a suprisingly popular Feat.

second edition fireball took 3 rounds to cast & three hours to prepare as a 3rd level spell. Using spells in second edition was no simple standard action back then. It's also why the ultra high level spells were so freaking epic, anything that took 7+ rounds to cast and was interrupted if you got hit at all by anything needed to be freaking epic.

[Drakevarg]

I once killed my party with the tank's mom. No joke.

What happened was that the entire town had been wiped out and zombified. Heading in to investigate, the tank found his mother in his house, facing the fireplace. Reaching out to touch her, she turned out to be zombified. Now, at the time I was trying to give the game more of a horror feel and as such had made the zombies in the area be of the Fast, Unkillable variants from Libris Mortis. Bad idea, as it turns out. As she regenerated from everything they threw at her, she had wiped the floor with the entire party in under 30 seconds.

Finding this hilarious but otherwise stupid, I opted to retcon the entire event out of existence and removed the Unkillable part. Things progressed much more smoothly then. It's worth pointing out that at the time, I had forgotten that zombies get double the HD of their base creature, meaning even with the regeneration and all, the zombies were still techinically gimped.

[Shadow Lord]

second edition fireball took 3 rounds to cast & three hours to prepare as a 3rd level spell. Using spells in second edition was no simple standard action back then. It's also why the ultra high level spells were so freaking epic, anything that took 7+ rounds to cast and was interrupted if you got hit at all by anything needed to be freaking epic.

... Alright, I shall never now play 2nd Edition! I have to wait 3 rounds to cast the staple blaster spell of all Wizards everywhere? And it takes 3 hours to prepare? Yeah, no.

[Safety Sword]

My worst wasn't so bad as it might have been, because it wasn't technically part of the campaign. The DM wanted to see how our party mechanics would work before the campaign started. So we faced off against some orcs (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/humanoids/orc).

Not too threatening, nothing to worry about, right?

What we thought. Right up to the point where an orc pulls a max damage critical off on the monk. He was only missing like 2 hp...and it killed him outright.

Now, until that point, we'd been destroying these things. There were only two of them still alive at the time, and we managed to kill that one in the next round. The last, it turns out, was the Favored of the Dice Gods. We couldn't hit it, it couldn't stop hitting us.

Man that was ridiculous. One orc managed to wipe out the remaining four or five PCs. I still cringe a bit whenever that DM pulls out the orcs.

Same thing happened to party in my game. "There's an orc with a battleaxe" now causes my players to shiver and break into cold sweats. Great for comic relief though ;)

[Pigkappa]

The worst TPK I saw happened when I was a DM and the players were in castle Ravenloft (a huge castle full of evil creatures, owned by an high level vampire wizard). They went in at 9 AM, killed some minions wasting most of their spells, and cast an extended Rope Trick inside the castle (in a room very far from the entrance, and very near to a necromancer who had heard them). They thought they could stay just there for 24 hours.
I gave them the chance to surrender; they did, and then they suddenly attacked the necromancer. TPK.

[Tetrasodium]

... Alright, I shall never now play 2nd Edition! I have to wait 3 rounds to cast the staple blaster spell of all Wizards everywhere? And it takes 3 hours to prepare? Yeah, no.

second edition fireball was usually extremely powerful in use from what I recall. It was a scary spell because affected targets would have to make disjunction style saves on anything flammable if I'm not mistaken

[Malimar]

I DM'd one.

The party scout elected to buy some 50 pints of lamp oil, intending to use them for fire arrows (which, not remembering if there are any actual rules for it, I said just turn the arrow's piercing damage into fire damage). And that's fine, it was just few enough pints that it didn't encumber him, so I let it go.

Then, some weeks later, they were fighting a vampire factotum. Somebody happened to ask how much damage a pint of lamp oil does when it explodes, and I ruled 1d6 damage in the high-oxygen environment they happened to be fighting in (the Plane of Air, but not using the standard cosmology).

Then I realized that I had happened to stat the vampire with scorching ray prepared.

The vampire missed the scout with one scorching ray. Then he hit with the other. Then the scout failed a reflex save to catch it on something other than the bottles of lamp oil the vampire was aiming at.

The explosion did 54d6 damage to the scout, half that to everyone else within range, halved again if anybody had made their saves. Even the quartered damage was enough to kill everyone in the party. The party had fun rolling all the d6s for me.

The vampire made his reflex save, and was wearing a Ring of Evasion. The wizard was out of range.

The wizard ducked into a Rope Trick, rested, and came out and challenged the vampire to a duel, which the vampire only barely won (and Turned the wizard, who is now a notable NPC in my current campaign).

Moral of the story: don't buy 6 gallons of lamp oil at once.

[dps]

I think I've posted about this before, but anyway, years ago I was part of a new group that was starting a campaign, don't remember which edition--in fact, I'm not even certain it was D&D or some other system. Anyway, there were 6 level 1 characters in the party, mostly rather inexperienced players or outright newbies, though I don't think it was any inexperience that did us in, just really bad luck. We had heard a rumor that there might be work for a party of adventurers in a neighboring town, so we set out on the road and the DM (who IIRC was an experienced player, but hadn't DM much if any before) rolled up a random encounter. We got attacked by a pack of 4 wolves. They weren't magical or giant or anything, just regular wolves. I don't remember exactly how things went down, but they ended up killing all 6 of us with no losses to themselves. Like I said, I don't remember exactly how it happened, but I don't think we really did anything wrong, we just kept rolling really poorly.

[tyckspoon]

... Alright, I shall never now play 2nd Edition! I have to wait 3 rounds to cast the staple blaster spell of all Wizards everywhere? And it takes 3 hours to prepare? Yeah, no.

I'm.. not sure what rules he's remembering. They might be around somewhere, but they're not the ones *I* remember.. most spells still cast in the same round. The delay was to your initiative count (assuming you were using that particular version of initiative, the book had like four ways to do it), so a higher-level spell would go off later in the round, but it was still the same round. And prep time was 10 min/spell level/spell. 3 hours sounds about right for restoring most of your load of 1-3 level spells, not just one spell.. a high level wizard who'd been forced to cast most of his slots could spend a day or two getting them all set up again, tho.

[Tetrasodium]

I'm.. not sure what rules he's remembering. They might be around somewhere, but they're not the ones *I* remember.. most spells still cast in the same round. The delay was to your initiative count (assuming you were using that particular version of initiative, the book had like four ways to do it), so a higher-level spell would go off later in the round, but it was still the same round. And prep time was 10 min/spell level/spell. 3 hours sounds about right for restoring most of your load of 1-3 level spells, not just one spell.. a high level wizard who'd been forced to cast most of his slots could spend a day or two getting them all set up again, tho.

yea I think I might be mistaken now that you mention it, spells were full round actions & prep was 1hr/ spell level I think

[Devronq]

I remember one adventure i had where i had a pit trap like 60ft deep and i expected it to be not very significant as i knew the sorcerer had levitate and fly but he entered the trap with low hp and ended up dying from the fall. actually everyone failed to save and they all ended in the pit and as no one had any rope or any items that could logically help and the cleric had no spells that could help they just kinda voted to spend the rest of there life in the hole,(because the cleric had create food/water)

actually i ended up being super generous and pretending they had some climbing equipment but they still had to pay to res the sorcerer

[ZombiePunch]

There were only two of us a fighter and a wizard/druid and we were already pretty low on hp and resources. We were on an island in a subterranean lake and started getting attacked by phantom fungi. Caster hit a couple with faerie fire then got knocked out, I dragged her unconscious body to the boat while being attacked and got knocked out right before I was out of range. The boat with our unconscious bodies silently floated into the lake.

[Arbane]

Could you not buy a scroll in 2E?

Generally, no. 2nd edition I don't know too well, but in 1st Ed, Ye Olde Magick Shoppe was officially disapproved of until 3rd Ed, and MAKING scrolls was such a pain it was amazing anyone, even NPCs, bothered.

[Telasi]

second edition fireball took 3 rounds to cast & three hours to prepare as a 3rd level spell. Using spells in second edition was no simple standard action back then. It's also why the ultra high level spells were so freaking epic, anything that took 7+ rounds to cast and was interrupted if you got hit at all by anything needed to be freaking epic.

Correction: it took 30 minutes to prep and took less time to cast than most weapons took to swing. (+3 to init, low is good) Very little in 2e takes more than a round to cast.

On the topic of 2e and the subject at hand, the last time I tried running 2e other than the Tomb of Horrors (which rarely ends in a TPK, oddly), the party wiped facing 4 horsemen by rolling terribly. These were horsemen riding untrained mounts and wielding light maces, for reference.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Fireball in 2e was so powerful because it did so much DAMAGE. Your typical beatstick was doing 1d8 damage. If he had an ungodly strength, he might get a +5 to damage, if he had percentiles.

Fireball, on the other hand, was doing a minimum of 5d6 damage to everything in an area.

in 3.5, the tables have turned, and beatsticks do more damage than casters, who have turned to disabling and battlefield control for their bailiwick.


Worst TPK ever? A smart Adult Red Dragon with a Ring of Cold Resistance, Disguise Self to paint himself white, and a use-activated Cone of Cold item.

First round:

DM: Everyone in the area takes cold damage

Party: Ha! Good thing we buffed up with Cold Resistance to fight this white dragon we heard about.

Wizard: I don't do this very often, but this is one of those times that Evocation is called for... Delayed Blast Fireball!

Ranger: Good thing I had him toss Flaming Arrows on my quiver. Suck damage!

Cleric: Re-casting Protection from Cold

Rogue: I use my Wand of Scorching Ray!

DM: The delayed blast fireball lands dead center. The arrows bounce harmlessly off his scales, and the Scorching Ray seems to have been deflected by his scintillating scales. At the heart of the eruption, a bellowing laugher erupts. The dragon steps out of the conflagration, now red in color.

Party: HOSHOOT! Red Dragon! Red Dragon! Quick, switch elements!

And the dragon breathes. That's 12d10 fire damage, DC 28 save for half.

Rogue: I made my save, and I've got evasion, so no damage! Nyah Nyah! You want to play, lizard? I got your play right here! I pull out my wand of Shivering Touch and smack him with it!

Ranger: Meh, I got it. Now I'm pissed. Summon Nature's Ally. I summon 1d3 Wolves at his rear to give the Rogue some flanking!

Wizard: Ummm... how much damage was that again? :smalleek:

Cleric: Dismiss Resist Cold and cast Resist Fire! DMM Quicken Mass Cure Light Wounds!

DM: Okay, now the wizard is very well done, and the rest of the party has a bit of healing and resistance to fire. Rogue, did you happen to forget what size a Dragon is?

Rogue: Umm... big?

DM: Very good. And do you know what his reach is?

Rogue: uh oh...

DM: You know how McGruff took a bite out of crime? Yea, it's kind of like that.

Rogue: But hey, that didn't kill me, so I get to make my attack roll for Shivering Touch. And it's a Touch attack, so I can't POSSIBLY miss...

DM: You miss.

Rogue: HOW?

DM: Isn't this a question you should have asked last turn when your ray bounced off of his scintillating scales?

Wizard's Player: Wait... wait a sec... isn't that the spell that lets a dragon keep his natural armor bonus to AC against touch attacks?

DM: Indeed it is.

All players at table: [And you kiss your mother with that mouth? For shame]

DM: Okay, now it's the Dragon's turn. Who uses his Rod of Cone of Cold again.

Cleric: That did it for me

Ranger: Ha! Made the save on that one. And I've got evasion too.

Rogue: Please, I'd have to have rolled a Natural 1 to get hit by THAT one...

DM: Okay, what do you do now?

Ranger: Me? I'm running. Longstrider!

Rogue: Hey! Wait for me!

DM: Attack of Opportunity...

Rogue: [Although biologically impossible, it is nonetheless an intriguing concept]

Ranger: At least I got away...

DM: What's your current speed?

Ranger: With Longstrider? 40'

DM: Oh, good.

Ranger: Why is that?

DM: The Dragon's fly speed is 150'. Make me another Reflex save

Ranger: At least I have Resist Fire so his breath weapon probably isn't going to kill me...

DM: Fire? No, this is a Grease spell.

Ranger: [Really now, that was quite uncalled for]

DM: Oh, and a Balance check, if you please.

Ranger: Whew... made it

DM: Do you have at least five ranks in balance?

Ranger: Err... no

DM: Oh, that means you're flat-footed as well. And now he's diving at you.

Ranger: [If you cannot be witty in your repartee, at least you can be vulgar in your verbosity]

[holywhippet]

Could you not buy a scroll in 2E?

It sort of depended on what your DM wanted and where you were actually adventuring. A major city might have a shop that would sell magical items. Out in the middle of nowhere? Forget it.

2nd edition was pretty brutal when it came to magic in general though. I think the cost of buying a cure light wound spell (1d8 healing - no + for level) was something like 25 or 50 gold. So a spell scroll would not be cheap.

Also, when trying to scribe a scroll in 2nd edition you had to make some kind of roll (intelligence check maybe? I forget) and if you fail the roll you don't scribe the scroll and the spell vanishes.

[Gorfang113]

The one tpk my players have had was partially there fault, but mostly mine. It was a group of 7 ecl 10 characters. As a boss I threw a Bona Naga at them (I did not know about MM2's horrific challange ratings at that time). I also gave it a bunch of illusion spells. I thought it would be about CR 12, which made sense, +1 for illusions and +1 because its a boss. I figured that my oversized group could handle it. WRONG. The naga had greater invisibiltiy on itself and was using the human shaped dancing light. It was making it seem like the dl was using some weird teleknesis to damage the players (example: he would swipe his arm at one, invs. bone naga would smack them with its tail). Even though I had told the pcs in advance that the boss was an illusionist and a bone naga and that they neeeded to use some logic or common sense, they just sat there trying to kill the illusion without thinking for a second. So the boss just killed them one by one. It didnt help that only 5 people showed up, and only 4 had characters (they sold her pc into slavery to a vampire because they didn't want to pay a gate toll. They thought she wouldnt mind. She did...). Ranger was dominated, told to climb a pillar, then flesh to stone, fall, shatter. Hafling master thrower was blinded and deafened. NPC Healer was torn apart by dimension dooring bn. Soulknife was destroyed by multiple lightning bolts and fireballs. The last character was a death knight blackguard. He became the bn's new leiutenant because they had killed the last one. The campaign ended there. My pcs were not happy about that. I still havent told them about the CR thing, mainly because bad things will hapen to me then :smallbiggrin:.

[Barstro]

The party scout elected to buy some 50 pints of lamp oil, ... And that's fine, it was just few enough pints that it didn't encumber him, so I let it go...

Moral of the story: don't buy 6 gallons of lamp oil at once.

I love DnD physics where six gallons in 50 glass bottles does not encumber someone or hamper scouting ability. :smalltongue: