Total Party Kills You Remember

[Basement Cat]

Despite playing D&D for decades I've never experienced a TPK as a player. My PCs have died left and right (including one being murdered in his sleep by my fellow party members--I showed up for the session and everyone was giggling and told me what had happened--eh, it was high school :smalltongue:) and several times there would be only one elf/dwarf/man etc standing. But never a TPK.

As a DM, however, I had a TPK sneak up on me and my friends. The party was low level, 2nd and 3rd level I think, and they were starting on what should have been a relatively short and straight forward dungeon crawl through a goblin lair.


The goblins only numbered 20 or so including children and other non combatants. The party was supposed to retrieve a stolen "trinket" which would lead to the next step of the adventure. The goblins weren't even playing smart like Tucker's Kobolds (http://www.tuckerskobolds.com/). It should have been a straight forward fight with the sole complication being a moral one as to whether the party members--all goodies--would murder helpless goblin elders and children.

The only "catch" I included was what I expected would be a minor impediment: Rather than have the goblin lair laid out standard 10X10 corridors and so on I made the tunnels and corridors "goblin sized" with tunnels 4 feet tall and 2 1/2 feet wide and rooms the size of a small car. It proved to be a death trap.

The players thought it was funny at first but the initial difficulty of having big, armored, human fighters barely able to fit into the tunnels just avalanched into a total cluster **** of bickering over the marching order and so forth. I'll spare you the sordid details but spells were cast and incendiaries were "thrown" (in the worst situations) while Great Swords and Great Axes proved to be useless in such confines, etc etc.

The defending goblins did die, yes. In fact EVERYBODY DIED but the elders and children hiding in a back room behind a closed door.


Ironically my friends found that "adventure" to be one of the most challenging and memorable ones they'd ever had: They'd simply never had to deal with such minor but perfectly logical space limitations and when it was over and the last PC went down burning everybody howled with laughter at their own stupidity and incompetence.

It was a fun session, despite being a TPK. :smallsmile:

EDIT: I wonder whether any of you would find such a scenario daunting?

What TPK experiences have you had? Were they disheartening or funny?

[Arkhios]

One not so fun TPK I'll always remember with ire:

We had a small group at the time, if I recall there were only three of us. In any case, we were playing in Eberron, 3.5, and if I recall, we were investigating something that led us to Xen'drik. In Xen'drik we allegedly "asked too many questions" and DM put us against a Bodak. Back then, Bodak was the ultimate Save or Die monster. One save or you die, right there in a blink of an eye.

3 out of 4 characters died on the first round of combat, 4th on the second (I played two characters). It was a bit anticlimactic TPK which felt really uncalled for. I mean, our job was to investigate, which we did the best way we thought, and were set up for a certain death because of it.

[Potato_Priest]

Just last session was my first ever TPK!

We were starting a new campaign at level 1. Only two players ended up showing up for the game, a sorcerer and a rogue (me). The very first thing we had to do was fight a knight (see NPC stat block for specifics) in an arena. We got terrible rolls and there was nowhere to escape to, so he just murdered the both of us.

Myself and my friend are usually hardcore optimizers, and for the first time in ages we were playing relatively unoptimized characters. The DM wasn't expecting that, and gave us a fight that was way too difficult.

Shortest campaign on my personal record! It lasted about 5 rounds. (30 seconds in-game time).

[Elminster298]

I DM'ed a 3.5 game years ago. 5 man party fairly standard around levels 8- 10. The party was in a sea chase attempting to rescue the child of a political figure that had been captured. I decided to throw a major hurricane into the path of the ship's so the battle woul dnt happen until they both reached tge island destination. The PCs however thought it would be a brilliant idea to force the ship's captain(at sword point!) to sail straight through the storm so they could reach the island first. Even when the ship started to fall apart around them(I gave them ample time to change their minds) they kept going until they capsized. Most of the ship's crew died right away, the last 5 died over the next week just before the party died of dehydration, starvation, and various other sea hazards. The only player that got passed off about the tpk was the one who spearheaded the plan to go through the storm.

[xanderh]

I think the funniest one has to be the campaign I ran for two players. They were in a dungeon, and had just taken a long rest. The first encounter was against two mummies (medium encounter), and it completely wiped the floor with them. They had everything they needed to bypass resistances, but the mummies just kept rolling crits and the players kept missing. I gave them the death saves, but they both died.

I plan on letting the party into the same dungeon in the future, to obtain the artifacts for their current characters, assuming they want to (one player knows the location because of his background).

Other than this one tpk, I can't actually remember any. I do remember one dungeon where 3 out of 5 characters died. I still attribute those deaths to one player casting Shatter in areas where party members were present.

[Sir cryosin]

So this was are first 5e game. We played through the hole rise of tiamat books. The bard and moon Druid (father and son power gamers) pissed of the metallic dragon council and we needed there help. So the DM called me and another player to meet up. And we rolled play a secret meeting with the dragons again. This time we got there help but we must kill the bard and druid afterwords. Because they got to fouced on killing dragons and we're very very good at it. So we make are way into the chamber were the dragon cult was trying to summon tiamat. We end up killing the summoners and stopped the ritual. So that's when I (oh we were giving 3 scrolls of anti-magic fields) pulled out one scroll and casted it on the druid. Then went in for a kill (I was playing a fighter ranger mc). I was doing alright but started to fail because the other player didn't help. So I got double teamed and after I dropped. He runs over to the bard and druid grabed my bag of holding and his portable hole and went black hole on them. It sucked the three in now the player that did this early helped a Genie and was given a gem to summon him to offer one wish. So he used the gem summoned the Genie then wish to be brought back. So now the party of 5 there is one one player left. Thats when the Genie shows up with the dead rogue body in his arms. Puts him down in front of the ranger. She just turns around and leaves later on she drunk her self to death. Oh the person playing a cleric couldn't make it so the DM had the cleric jump in the way of a red dragon breath to save the party killing him.

[Osrogue]

My very first game ended in a TPK, (or it would have been one). It was a homebrewed 3.0/3.5 game where all the characters were level 5. For some reason, a giant CR 10 Demon Spider was in the random encounter list, and well, the psion could have stunlocked it fairly easily, but didn't know her character enough to know that (we were all using premades), and the only other person who could even hurt it was me, with magic missile. It killed the monk and fighter, the ranger and psion were on their last legs, and I was getting ready to summon a mount and book it, before it was retconned into a shared nightmare.

[Hrdven]

I remember a TPK in 3.0, after a several months long campaign, just at the final boss battle.
We were a pretty good group, about 5-6 players and around level 12 or more. Moreover one of the players had a follower, obtained through the Leadership feat. He was basically a low level human commoner, which the player carried around to do menial tasks.

So we get into this final battle, against an evil mage who was going to destroy the whole world.
Now I don't remember the details of the fight because it happened several years ago, but it was quite hard and one by one all the characters died or became unconscious.
We arrive to the final round, and the only characters alive are my paladin, the human follower, and the evil villain with just a few hit points left. He had just the time to cast one final spell.. the master decides to use Phantasmal Killer (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Phantasmal_Killer) (a save or die spell). He rolled a dice to decide whether the villain would cast it on the human follower or me.. and it turned out to be me. I rolled the save throw, fail, and die... In the next round the human follower swings at the villain at kills him.

So the only person standing after the final campaign fight is the low level human commoner.. He got so many experience points that he became stronger than our characters, and the master decided to elevate him to the status of semi-divinity.. We had all a lot of fun and laughed a lot.

p.s. only a few days after the session I remembered that Paladins were immune to Fear effects.. but it was too late and it was funny to have the commoner elevated as divinity,

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Phantasmal_Killer

[Moosoculars]

Similar to the post above I remember the party being wiped out by carrion crawlers. They were in tight tunnels and couldn't maneuver and the person at the front was paralyzed and then slowly killed. The same happened at the back of the line of pcs and soon it was a game of who could pass saving throws round after round. In the end the whole party was wiped out.

[KorvinStarmast]

Not quite 36 years ago, we were playing in the second Giant module (Frost Giants). Our monk had a necklace of missiles (which tosses variable strength fireballs). We had engaged and were fighting a few of the Frost Giants (and more were coming, based on clues from the DM) ... and then the monk (for reasons that I think had to do with the amount of beer at the table) took one of the missiles off and tossed it at the giant he was fighting.
In melee range.
And it went off. And of course the monk (who had great save chances wasn't worried).
The DM had the monk roll a save. (And me, since I was close by, grrr, but I made the save)
Monk rolled a 2.
The item is magical, but was not hard metal, so it needed an 18 to save, +2 for magical.
Monk rolled a 1.
All six of the remaining fireballs (including the biggest one) went off. (right out of the book).
If the necklace is being worn or carried by a character who fails his or her saving throw versus a magical fire attack, the item must undergo a saving throw check as well. If it fails to save, all remaining missiles detonate simultaneously
Kaboom/boom/boom/boom/boom/boom/boom.
The DM had to roll a lot of six sided dice.
All but one of us was down, one of the giants remained standing ... whose turn it was next.
One swing, max damage on the fighter still standing.
All of us were now down.
Frost Giants 1, us 0.
The DM was as stunned as we were, and we all sorta looked at each other and went ... what now? Most of us were well past -10 HP. Fighter was not.
The DM chose to give our "last standing" Fighter "system shock check" which he passed, and the Frost Giant spent it's time trying to revive/heal its compadres, summon help.

When the fighter woke up, there were a bunch of giants staring at him. (The rest of us were in the stew pot).

The Big Chief asked the fighter: "You ever going to bother us Frost Giants again?"
Answer: "No."
Chief: "Go away, and tell people not to mess with Frost Giants"
Answer: "Just show me the door, chief."

The rest of us rolled up new characters, and we never did get to the Fire Giants.
DM was nice and let us restart at third level.
Memorable? Yeah, and no, that player was told in no uncertain terms that Monk was not allowed for his character ... by the rest of us. (He rolled up an illusionist)

[sir_argo]

We had a TPK that is now a metaphor in our group. We were playing a superhero game and our heroes went into an alien spaceship. The ship had a teleportation pad and we went in. We appeared on the mothership, in a room that had no gravity. My character was the only one who could fly, so I was fine (at first) but everybody else was literally helpless, just floating and unable to even move. In D&D 5e terms, they had disadvantage for every action they attempted, and the aliens had advantage on all attacks. The aliens just stood back and lit them up with laser rifles. It wasn't even close. Two of those floating helplessly died quickly. The DM paused the game and admitted that this was tougher than he thought it was going to be, so he let those two players make new characters. We skipped on how to rationalize why two new superhero's would just show up for no reason--they just did. We weren't in the mood for roleplaying it out at that point. The two new heroes entered the room and proceed to just die again--quickly. Followed by the next. And then me. I don't remember us taking out even a single alien. It was such an utter joke, such an abysmal event of tom****ery, that to this day when it appears the DM has gone too far with an encounter, we start referring to the encounter as the "zero-g room".

That was over 5 years ago. I'm still not over it.

[youtellatale]

I DM'ed a 3.5 game years ago. 5 man party fairly standard around levels 8- 10. The party was in a sea chase attempting to rescue the child of a political figure that had been captured. I decided to throw a major hurricane into the path of the ship's so the battle woul dnt happen until they both reached tge island destination. The PCs however thought it would be a brilliant idea to force the ship's captain(at sword point!) to sail straight through the storm so they could reach the island first. Even when the ship started to fall apart around them(I gave them ample time to change their minds) they kept going until they capsized. Most of the ship's crew died right away, the last 5 died over the next week just before the party died of dehydration, starvation, and various other sea hazards. The only player that got passed off about the tpk was the one who spearheaded the plan to go through the storm.

I would be pissed if this happened too. Sounds like the party did something you didn't want and ham-fistedly put an obstacle in their path so they wouldn't go off-rails on you. Kinda crappy if you ask me.

[xanderh]

We had a TPK that is now a metaphor in our group. We were playing a superhero game and our heroes went into an alien spaceship. The ship had a teleportation pad and we went in. We appeared on the mothership, in a room that had no gravity. My character was the only one who could fly, so I was fine (at first) but everybody else was literally helpless, just floating and unable to even move. In D&D 5e terms, they had disadvantage for every action they attempted, and the aliens had advantage on all attacks. The aliens just stood back and lit them up with laser rifles. It wasn't even close. Two of those floating helplessly died quickly. The DM paused the game and admitted that this was tougher than he thought it was going to be, so he let those two players make new characters. We skipped on how to rationalize why two new superhero's would just show up for no reason--they just did. We weren't in the mood for roleplaying it out at that point. The two new heroes entered the room and proceed to just die again--quickly. Followed by the next. And then me. I don't remember us taking out even a single alien. It was such an utter joke, such an abysmal event of tom****ery, that to this day when it appears the DM has gone too far with an encounter, we start referring to the encounter as the "zero-g room".

That was over 5 years ago. I'm still not over it.

Yeah, environmental stuff can really make a huge difference. Recently, my party was attacking a thieves guild. They were blasting through it, but the second-to-last room almost killed them. A hard encounter according to the DMG, it featured two groups of bandits behind barricades on the flanks, and one archer (volo's guide) behind his own barricade. The party entered through a doorway with no cover, and got pelted by a surprise round. The fact that the party didn't have cover, combined with three-quarters cover from the barricades meant that the party was taking lots of damage and dealing none. The only reason they survived was because of a Hold Person that landed on the archer and stuck until everything was dead.

[kaoskonfety]

3rd edition - the low lever party (4 of them at 2nd level?) sloggin though an undead infested wilderness finds the temple where the Adept (5th level? - a 2nd level spell, decent bank of HP) has set up shop. They manage to slay the adept with one of the party down and bleeding out... and the adepts cat familiar jumps, under the effect of bulls strength (share spell people), into the fray... and drops a PC with 2 damage. A round later no one has hit the cat... and its strikes another player for one damage.... staggering them. Round 3 the staggered PC take this final action, dropping to -1, the third part member desperate tries to make a break for it.. the cat strikes... for 2 damage.. staggering them.

And the game stopped as we all fell into fits of hysterical laughter. They rolled up a new batch of PC's at level 1 "hired to look into what happened to the last group", find their animated zombie remains and dispatch them, grab the re-animation McGuffin (for later volcano disposal), and adopted the housecat that was mysteriously in the ruin. Good times. That party made it to level 5 or 6 before the game folded? They kept the cat.

[Sariel Vailo]

Spoopy ghosts atacked and nearly killed us all.i died later like 1 encounter later before the extra pcs were rolled up 3 gnolls 1 eildmagic sorcerer my wild magery did a fireball at my feet

[Waterdeep Merch]

I've seen three, ever. My players have gotten close to wiping a lot of times, but (not trying to gloat to smarmily) my encounters have always been balanced just precariously enough to prevent a TPK while remaining wildly dangerous.

The first time was a custom oWoD cyberpunk game back in the day. After a fairly exciting campaign, one player decided they were bored and didn't feel like playing any more. So, as the party's wheelman, he ran into an oncoming truck. My character barely survived the ensuing carnage, as did his, so he tried to strangle me to death. Which he did, but not before I put a bullet in his brain. No way I was letting him walk away.

The second one was the first attempt by a new DM back in 3.0. I'm not going to rip on him too much here, but he made a classic newbie mistake- he decided to 'balance' the rules to be more 'realistic', long before he had any mastery over said rules. So the three of us ran into enemies that had awkwardly high DR in all but specific weapon/energy types, and he gave no descriptions in-game to clue us into the fact that he was doing this. He explained it after the floor was littered with our corpses, figuring us taking too long to kill anything was a good enough clue that he was adding DR (he never once described any attack, so there was no reason to believe my sword was bouncing off the enemy's plate armor).

The final one happened in an Eberron game I was DMing. Two party members brought an out of game grudge with them into the game and tried to kill each other when they were all in the middle of a fire elemental-powered cart in the middle of the desert. The other players got involved, the fire elemental got loose and everything exploded, and in the end a single player was left alive, heavily injured and stranded hundreds of miles from anywhere without any supplies, dying the most horrific death of all. It's the poster child for why I don't allow PvP in most games.

[Basement Cat]

Back when they first discovered D&D two friends of mine who were in Junior High played their first game together with one being DM and the other playing a fighter.

Keep in mind that this was at the same time when the D&D animated show was playing in the 80's.

The DM's "adventure" was simple: The PC started by looking at a cave entrance. Upon entering and walking 20 feet the PC found the corridor split left and right. On the right was a room full of treasure. No guards. No traps. Just piles of coins and magic items. The player did not know this.

The player, unfortunately didn't turn right, either. He turned left, walked down a short corridor into a huge cavern---and found himself facing Tiamat! :smallbiggrin:

They rolled initiative which the player lost. The DM rolled an attack and Tiamat, the Goddess of Evil Dragons, hit the 1st level fighter and killed him.

With a stomping attack--which that version of Tiamat didn't even have. :smallwink:

Yeah, that TPK was one for the memory books.

[agnos]

I remember my first and only TPK (that I was around for) to this day. We played at my friend Jeff's house; Jeff was DMing, Sherry (Jeff's wife), Mesa (work friend), Rob (gaming buddy), Dave (Jeff's HS gaming friend), and myself. We had two clerics since Dave had joined us. Dave went off to try and pull the BBEG into Darkness which Dave could see through but the BBEG couldn't. Sherry and Mesa managed to get surrounded and give the opponents flanking while not actually bothering to step into flanking for themselves. I got "blowed up" after I could save vs a Hold Person spell and Rob was trying to stem the bleeding.

Sherry and Mesa never ended up setting the front line properly or making the best they could afterwards. The enemies were like water in a leaking boat. To be fair, Sherry and Mesa were just learning to play; though they never took any advice even when they asked for it or when it was obviously needed. Mesa now rages against her durdley group. Jeff, Rob and I got together later and they told me that all the advice that was given was 100% correct. We failed because we as a group couldn't work together. I learned better ways to offer advice.

[hymer]

In my current West Marches style campaign, there's been one TPK so far. A group of three 4th level PCs decided to explore a cave they knew contained troglodytes (after all, the fewer the PCs, the greater the shares of treasure, right?). The initial encounter with the troglodyte guards has been brutal, with PCs going down and getting back up using the party's precious few healing resources. But finally, there's just one troglodyte left, and I think two PCs left standing with no more healing available at all. One of the players decides that for a final flourish, he wants to make use of his newly acquired Mobile feat. So he attacks the troglodyte (and it survives) and then runs into an unexplored tunnel, around the corner, and disturbs the carrion crawler waiting there for the fight to die down so it can go in and have a nice, big meal in peace (okay, I was being nice, he crawler should probably have been coming at them). The crawler downs the PC no problem, and the last standing PC decides to stay and try to fight rather than abandon his friends. Noble, but stupid, and the carrion crawler ate well that night.