DM question: my party just killed themselves. what do I do?

[gooby_pls]

I'm currently dming the way of the wicked adventure path for a my play group. We're at the end of book three, and my party all killed themselves because they turned a phoenix into stone when it was right above them. They were all smashed. Anyway, due to the nature of the campaign, it's nigh impossible for them to to roll new characters. No one is left to res the party. How do I proceed, or is the campaign finished with?

[Forrestfire]

I'm not familiar with Way of the Wicked, but maybe turn them into ghosts? They can come back, "haunting"/bound to some thing. To keep the rules sane, make this binding keep them corporeal, and give them limited incorporeality abilities maybe and flip their negative energy/positive energy interactions, but otherwise have them stay the same type, and using a Con score and the like. If a player wants to pursue ghostly abilities, possibly let them spend levels to get the actual template, or burn WBL to unlock not!magic items that give them thematic abilities?

[Bronk]

You could straight up have an adventure with them being dead as petitioners. They could bargain with a devil or demon for their lives, sell their souls to pass their quest to new adventurers, meet up with and impress an angel before their memories go...

I like the ghost thing too!

[Anlashok]

First make fun of them for not having a single player in a 10th level party who can eat 8d6 damage.. or make a DC15 reflex save.

Then go with that ghost idea or bargaining with a devil idea. Both those sound fun.

[gooby_pls]

Sorry, I just realized I didn't go into the details of what's going on.


Spoilers ahead:



The way of the wicked campaign is centered on the adventurers working for the high priest of asmodeous to bring back his religion and drive out the goody goody two shoes lg religion currently on power. They're supposed to do it secretly, and not let anyone know about their affiliation. As such, new characters are impossible. The party is composed of a vampire, a graveknight, a half fiend, and 2 normal people. The campaign suggests adding templates, as the campaign is very aggressive toward the PCs. At this point, the high priest is scared of them and planned to off them at the end of this book anyway. Asmodeus isn't supposed to be directly involved. The party died in the campaign's equivalent of the Vatican for the good guys, so asmodeus can't influence there.

[gooby_pls]

Also, the rules for falling damage is for every 200 lbs, 1d6 damage per 10 ft dropped. A roc weighs 8000 lbs and fell 100 ft, the reflex save is for half damage....

[Darrin]

The party died in the campaign's equivalent of the Vatican for the good guys, so asmodeus can't influence there.

Here's where I would tweak things a bit. The High Priest of the Good Guys is actually a turncoat working for Asmodeus (or perhaps some other nefarious entity). He takes care of the arrangements to get rid of the PC corpses... except he secretly keeps them, and uses some dark ritual to bring them back... as revenants or vampire slaves or some other subserviant undead minion type. Turns out he wants to get rid of the current high priest of Asmodeus and be top dog when the big A makes his big entrance, and he figures bringing the PCs back under his direct control is the best way to do that. So now the PCs have one more additional villain to deal with... who starts out directly controlling them, via mind control/geas/dominate/etc., so they've got to figure out a way to break that control first, then sort out which high priest to go after.

[johnbragg]

I'm currently dming the way of the wicked adventure path for a my play group. We're at the end of book three, and my party all killed themselves because they turned a phoenix into stone when it was right above them. They were all smashed. Anyway, due to the nature of the campaign, it's nigh impossible for them to to roll new characters. No one is left to res the party. How do I proceed, or is the campaign finished with?

Go with the Pelor, The Burning Hate concept, and have one of evil-Pelor's servants create them as some sort of undead with a new mission--to infiltrate Asmodeus' heirarchy and reduce him to a servant of the Burning Hate.

http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-general/threads/1115741

[gooby_pls]

They've killed everyone in the place, the only being left is the angel that is in charge

[Shining Wrath]

Obviously, you need a Deus ex Machina of some sort. Fortunately, there are pieces of one lying all around the corpses of the party.

See, one of the characteristics of Phoenix is that they rise from their own ashes - except this phoenix never got the chance to immolate. Therefore, there's a whole lot of regain-life energy contained in a phoenix statue, and smashing it releases that energy.

Go giggles and grins: they are REINCARNATED, not resurrected. Think of something special for each character (no table rolling for this situation!) and bring them back as something different, but appropriate.

[Raven777]

I'm currently dming the way of the wicked adventure path for a my play group. We're at the end of book three, and my party all killed themselves because they turned a phoenix into stone when it was right above them. They were all smashed. Anyway, due to the nature of the campaign, it's nigh impossible for them to to roll new characters. No one is left to res the party. How do I proceed, or is the campaign finished with?

Sorry to interrupt, but if there's a year's best deaths reel on the forums, this needs to be in it.

[JoshuaZ]

Sorry, I just realized I didn't go into the details of what's going on.


Spoilers ahead:



The way of the wicked campaign is centered on the adventurers working for the high priest of asmodeous to bring back his religion and drive out the goody goody two shoes lg religion currently on power. They're supposed to do it secretly, and not let anyone know about their affiliation. As such, new characters are impossible. The party is composed of a vampire, a graveknight, a half fiend, and 2 normal people. The campaign suggests adding templates, as the campaign is very aggressive toward the PCs. At this point, the high priest is scared of them and planned to off them at the end of this book anyway. Asmodeus isn't supposed to be directly involved. The party died in the campaign's equivalent of the Vatican for the good guys, so asmodeus can't influence there.

And you think Asmodeus wouldn't have a backup bunch of dupes loyal followers ready to take over? The need for secrecy makes sense for why it would be really tough for new party members to join (although even then one could have things like a dream from Asmodeus telling the PCs to accept someone) but if the whole group is gone, then the high priest can get another group.

[redzimmer]

You could have cultists deeply embedded in the LG church (a la Hydra in Captain America: the Winter Soldier) who want to see this great deed done, and they had some tissue of each class member beforehand of the mortals for a clone, and just some fell single-use artifact to revivify the undead and re-summon the outsiders.

[Lerondiel]

Also, the rules for falling damage is for every 200 lbs, 1d6 damage per 10 ft dropped. A roc weighs 8000 lbs and fell 100 ft, the reflex save is for half damage....

wow, the phoenix is the size of a roc and has the space and maneuverability to fly around inside a vatican-esque building at 100ft? how big's this building?

[jaydubs]

Also, the rules for falling damage is for every 200 lbs, 1d6 damage per 10 ft dropped. A roc weighs 8000 lbs and fell 100 ft, the reflex save is for half damage....

I'm guessing you're running Way of the Wicked in 3.5?

In case you're running PF or switched over to PF at some point, the rules for falling objects would be different. A gargantuan stone object would do either 4d6 damage (fall less than 10 feet), 8d6 damage (10 feet to 150 feet), or 16d6 damage (over 150 feet).

Not sure what system you're running though, or if it makes a difference, or if you're willing to retcon if it would have. Just a possible out.

[endur]

Also, the rules for falling damage is for every 200 lbs, 1d6 damage per 10 ft dropped. A roc weighs 8000 lbs and fell 100 ft, the reflex save is for half damage....

Maximum damage is 20d6. Reflex save for half would be 10d6.

[Deophaun]

Also, the rules for falling damage is for every 200 lbs, 1d6 damage per 10 ft dropped. A roc weighs 8000 lbs and fell 100 ft, the reflex save is for half damage....
All damage, actually:

Damage: The damage dealt by a dropped object is based on the weight of the object and the distance the object falls, as noted on page 303 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide. A creature can avoid damage from the attack by making a DC 15 Reflex save.

[Anlashok]

Also, the rules for falling damage is for every 200 lbs, 1d6 damage per 10 ft dropped. A roc weighs 8000 lbs and fell 100 ft, the reflex save is for half damage....

Sorry. Assumed since you were using a Pathfinder module you were playing pathfinder. Though, as mentioned above, in 3.5 dropped object damage caps at 20d6 and it's reflex negates and in pathfinder it'd be 8d6 reflex half. Which is why I mentioned those numbers.

[Nalak]

What about an Inevitable? They are beings dedicated entirely to varying laws that don't necessarily make a lot of sense when looked at outside of the Inevitable's own mindset. You could have one basically go in and resurrect them to address one of the laws. A simple one would be saying something like there was a person who was paying a price for a pact to Asmodeus that involved basically following the party and if it became necessary ensuring that they were resurrected once. If the entire group died more than that then they would be deemed too incompetent and Asmodeus would find someone else to do the job. Events happened and the person broke their end of the deal and the inevitable had arrived to ensure the contract was fulfilled anyway. It occurs to me you could also just use the other things I said without the Inevitable and the mortal trying to betray Asmodeus, but I'm just saying an Inevitable would have the best chance/justification for being able to get the bodies past the angel.

You could also borrow a trick from Warhammer 40k and have Asmodeus remake their souls into demons before having them re-summoned to the world to finish the job. Then they get the sidequest of removing their demon state, so they can regain some of the freedom they lost when they were remade.

[atemu1234]

Also, the rules for falling damage is for every 200 lbs, 1d6 damage per 10 ft dropped. A roc weighs 8000 lbs and fell 100 ft, the reflex save is for half damage....

400d6 damage.

[Segev]

One of the PCs is a vampire. Vampires, upon destruction from most things (including pure physical damage) turn to mist and return to their coffin until nightfall.

So you have at least one survivor. (I'm assuming he wasn't dumb enough to have his coffin be so far away that he couldn't spend his days in it.) He can go about getting the rest of the party raised or res'd. Heck, combine it with a deus ex machina ruling that, if their corpses are burned along with the stone fragments of the phoenix, the phoenix comes back...but so do the rest of the party. The vampire could resolve this a number of ways, including possibly just burning the whole building down.

Alternatively, if Asmodeus is truly restricted from this location, perhaps he cannot collect their souls. Have the angel offer them a pact: a chance at redemption. Basically, the corrupt-bargain-in-reverse.

Even without that, the fact that Asmodeus cannot intervene implies still that their souls are not going on to him in the afterlife (or he could offer to send them back, personally). This would be adequate excuse to apply the Ghost template to the half-fiend and the normal guys. Let them decide if they like the template or want to regain their lives...and point out that they'll need graves in order to have their ghostly equipment based on what's entombed with them.

Is grave knight a kind of undead? If so, does it have any "unkillable" clauses in its mechanics the way vampires and ghosts do? If not, he's probably the trickiest.

[M Placeholder]

One of the PCs is a vampire. Vampires, upon destruction from most things (including pure physical damage) turn to mist and return to their coffin until nightfall.
Is grave knight a kind of undead? If so, does it have any "unkillable" clauses in its mechanics the way vampires and ghosts do? If not, he's probably the trickiest.

The Grave Knight is a variant of the Death Knight, and its armour is its phylactery. I'm guessing that armour is now one veryflat sheet of metal.

[atemu1234]

The Grave Knight is a variant of the Death Knight, and its armour is its phylactery. I'm guessing that armour is now one veryflat sheet of metal.

Am I the only one now imagining Flat Stanley as an Undead?

[some guy]

The Grave Knight is a variant of the Death Knight, and its armour is its phylactery. I'm guessing that armour is now one veryflat sheet of metal.


Merely breaking a graveknight's armor does not destroy it; it must be ruined, such as by being disintegrated, taken to the Positive Energy Plane, or thrown into the heart of a volcano.

The question is 'Does being flattened by a petrified phoenix count as being ruined?". Or maybe the question is 'Does the OP want a 3d grave knight growing out of a 2d armor?'.

[Demidos]

The question is 'Does being flattened by a petrified phoenix count as being ruined?". Or maybe the question is 'Does the OP want a 3d grave knight growing out of a 2d armor?'.

Leading to the followup question of "How much of a good idea vs a horrible idea is a 2d campaign?" :smallamused:

[Segev]

Given that the bar is set at "disintegration," I would suggest that the armor will regrow the Grave Knight and the regrowth will pop the armor back into a fitting shape. Pun intended.

[Spore]

The question is 'Does being flattened by a petrified phoenix count as being ruined?". Or maybe the question is 'Does the OP want a 3d grave knight growing out of a 2d armor?'.

A petrified phoenix isn't a flat surface. Maybe the fall just crushed its head killing it instantly and giving it the uncanny "Headless Horseman" vibe.

[aspekt]

For internal consistency I think the Phoenix parts idea is ideal. Do bring them back each as something fitting, but especially the caster. They should come back as something a bit sillier than the rest. Perhaps an Arackoa or even just an awakened bird until someone can polymorph them permanently back. [Actually a flightless bird would be more poignant.]

The other simple idea is to drop their souls down in hell and give them some task to complete or guantlet to run to prove they are smarter than they appear. Success means Asmodeus' representative reincarnates or resurrects them at the point they died. And it's not like time manipulation is beyond the scope of 3.5 magic. Drop them at the point where the Phoenix falls on them. Only at a safe distance so they can observe and be sure to describe in gruesome detail the demise of their former selves.

Will this put off the success of their mission? Yes. Might it even make the mission more difficult? Probably, but they blundered in a big way and it wouldn't feel worth it to just hand them a get out of jail free card.

Remember being a good DM is like being a good jazz musician. Learn the rules so you know how to "break" them. Improv will always be a large part of any ongoing game.

[gooby_pls]

We run a hybrid of 3.5 and pathfinder, with rules all agreed upon before hand. As for the vampire, he was an idiot and put his coffin in his bag of holding. The phoenix was outside. The place where they are is sealed off from the outside, making it impossible for anyone else to get in.

[gooby_pls]

I offered them an out, went with a gauntlet run through hell to get reincarnated, and the party all agreed that they died epicy, and didn't want to ruin that, so they rejected my proposal

[Shining Wrath]

I offered them an out, went with a gauntlet run through hell to get reincarnated, and the party all agreed that they died epicy, and didn't want to ruin that, so they rejected my proposal

Then it's new party time. As someone pointed out, Asmodeus is the sort of guy whose backup plans to his backup plans have backups in case the backup backup didn't work. So you have to decide if he'll force these guys to be resurrected whether they like it or not (minion freedom of choice is NOT one of his endearing traits), or just bring in some fresh faces.

Or he'll bring in guys who eat the brains of the former party and thereby gain their knowledge of the current state of the mission. Having the new party take spoons to the shattered skulls of the old party ought to be a memorable introduction to the quest.

[Gerrtt]

Maybe I'm crazy, but I'm of the mindset that sometimes the players don't have to win. "You all die, so the enemies complete their goal and the game ends. What do we play next" is as OK an ending as winning sometimes.

[Spore]

I offered them an out, went with a gauntlet run through hell to get reincarnated, and the party all agreed that they died epicy, and didn't want to ruin that, so they rejected my proposal

Uhm, what if I told you, Asmodeus doesn't take death as a good enough excuse to quit his working force? Maybe they get new PCs but they all have the essence of their former PCs. After all, high level adventurers aren't exactly common. Throwing them into purgatory would be wasteful, but they've shown to be incompetent, so just use their essence to create devils instead.