Unwinnable Battles

[Saph]

Post any good stories here.

Our regular DM's been away for a while, so we've had a series of fill-ins. The DM we had this week ran an adventure for seven 1st-level characters, and sent us up in an unavoidable fight against an Ogre Zombie. Due either to the DM not reading the rules very carefully or wanting an early TPK, the zombie, instead of DR 5/slashing, had DR 5/-, as well as resistance to all energy types and the ability to take a full action each round instead of only a partial one, doing an average of 18 damage per hit.

Everyone died, as you'd expect. The one highlight was the fate of the ranger, who avoided the entire battle and ran away deeper into the dungeon while everyone else was getting killed. He got attacked by a monstrous spider and was webbed, poisoned, poisoned again, disabled, cocooned, and eaten. Given that he'd been randomly attacking other PCs during the session, it was kind of amusing. (Our group isn't normally this dysfunctional, but we got landed with a bunch of newbies for this adventure.)

So, what's the most unbeatable, Kobayashi-Maru-like encounter you've ever faced as a player?

(One caveat: it only counts if the monster/enemies were actually trying to kill you. Easily avoidable fights, DMPCs coming in at the last minute, automatic resurrections, 'it was all a dream', or other deus ex machinas don't count.)

- Saph

[....]

Strahd.

Without turning off his fanes or getting the Symbol of Ravenloft or the Daysword he ate us alive.

HE HAS LEVEL DRAINING LIGHTNING BOLTS!

[Saph]

Strahd.

Without turning off his fanes or getting the Symbol of Ravenloft or the Daysword he ate us alive.

HE HAS LEVEL DRAINING LIGHTNING BOLTS!

What level were you?

- Saph

[Belial_the_Leveler]

An entire party was once turned to dust via a "Crushed by the weight of Time" SDA then their particles dispersed by "Spread to Infinity" SDA. It was their mistake though-you don't pick a fight with Eternity.

[Drider]

my friend has his first time DMing for us, and had just read a story about the tarrasque *shudder* and did'nt know how cr worked. after 4 levels of killing gobbos, orcs, and an ogre with a differant dm, he takes over, a comet fell out of the sky and out came...ba ba ba, the tarrasque. 5 pcs X 4 lvls= cr 20 he said. 1 round TPK

[Matthew]

One of the most bizzare adventures I was ever on was when a relatively inexperienced Player decided he wanted to be the Dungeon Master for a change.
It basically involved our party of two or three walking along a road encountering progessively more powerful Dragons. After some early and surprising victories, we soon found ourselves in an unwinnable combat and ended up quite dead. I don't recall what level we were by then or even if we were actually advancing levels via the the 'ping' effect, but I don't think that we ever played under that Dungeon Master again...

[Arbitrarity]

200 orcs. 100 drow. Level 9 party. DM "forgot" Soft cover and Firing into melee, as well as placing the party essentially as he pleased.

So my (Heavily optimized for tripping/AOO/Charge) fighter was in the middle of 5 ft stepping orcs, dozens of archers, while our archer sat outside the ring and sniped, and our Aristocrat (with leadership) volleyed arrows in a building. DEM occured, though the Aristocrat could have survived and won.

[Knight_Of_Twilight]

We had some crazy, cybered-out guy we once fought in Shadowrun, which was pretty sad, since my magic using, gunslinging elf had been laying people out for most of the game.

We ended up stealing a car and running from him, though, so I'm not sure it works for this.

[....]

What level were you?

- Saph

There were seven of us, all level ten.

We weren't super-uber optomized or anything, though.

[puppyavenger]

guys first time DM'ing, he saw the name of the game, We were in a small but very tall cavern with a dragon sized plateua(sp) and a Gw red dragon attacked us.

[Jakezor]

Well, I was running a BESM one-shot on the fourth of July, and, I've found my players are always disturbingly apt at killing everything and anything so I figured I'd throw em a loop. This was a Sci-Fi setting, and all the characters were on a transport ship which was being hijacked by pirates for some unknown reason (well, there was a reason, but the investigative skills of the party bordered on nill, oh well) and, after they had beaten back the pirates, I decided it was time to Sic the boss on them (though conditions not necessarily being that which should have triggered his awakening).

Well, anyone ever watch Elfen Lied? I decided I'd have a psycic with ludicrously strong Illusion powers, far stronger than the characters could possibly resist, but his range would be limited to 40ft.

The Characters witnessed the walls bleeding, people exploding, and the hull of the ship explosively de-pressurizing and having their blood boil out of their eye sockets (I like graphic details >.<) only for him to have walked into the next room/hallway and suddenly they'd be fine. This was quite confusing for the party as they're used to a stand-up fight. and No room or corridor in the ship had a dimension longer than 40ft. The party had to kill/disable someone they could never be in the same room with.

[Zeta Kai]

My first time ever playing AD&D. During my first session, the DM put me (1st level elven rogue) on a lonely forest road, with a basilisk in front of me & a burning building behind me. "The woods are too dense to travel through. What you gonna do?"

After about 3 rounds of not hurting this would-have-been-CR5 monster all by myself, I got turned to stone. No one was there to rescue me. I never played with that guy as DM again.

Years later, as a DM myself, I had a party of new players discover the now-600-year-old statue. They determined on their own that it was once a person, so they revived the poor elven rogue, & employed her as a hireling for a while.

I guess the character technically lived, but for me as a first time gamer, I was a one-elf-TPK.

[Chronos]

One time, a party I was in mis-read the hints the DM was trying to drop to us, and thought that the High Council of so-and-so were the BBEGs we were supposed to beat. It turned out that all four members of the Council were 20th level wizards, while we were around level 4 or 5. The predictable result occured (I think it was specifically Forcecage + Bigby's Crushing Hand).

On the other side of the coin, once when I was DMing, the party ended up split, and a 3rd level paladin and a 3rd level cleric ended up ambushing a 7th-level cleric and his 9 HD demon advisor. The ambush they had set up ended up working extraordinarily well and handily dispatched the evil cleric, but I expected them to run when the demon showed up (there were a couple of friendly NPCs not too far away that could have easily killed it). They didn't run. Instead, they killed the demon, too, without taking a singe point of damage themselves.

[skywalker]

Hmmm, I played one of the downloadable freebies on the WotC website that involved a trek to a glacier. The boss was an ice elemental who cast as a sorc and had an ice salamander pet. The DM thought that since it was written for 4 level 7s, three level 8s and a level 4 cohort could handle it. The problem is that the WotC freebies are geared towards parties with clerics, and none of us liked playing them, so the cleric wound up 4 levels below the rest as the cohort. I dunno if the DM was actually rolling the percentage dice right(I've since stopping gaming with him), but the boss hit half the party with a confusion, then cone of cold-ed myself and the tank, who had charged the salamander(which was immune to cold). Due to the DM ruling that Boots of the Winterlands didn't protect against the salamander's cold aura, and me taking 5 points of damage to beef up blade of blood, I was frozen straight away. The salamander took a nice bite out of the tank, and the rest of the party was confused.

It was sad.


In a game of FATE, the DM forced us into combat against someone who polymorphed into a Red Dragon. There was no where to run or hide, we just had to fight it. Which wasn't really a problem, except FATE combat sucks! So not an un-winnable fight, just an un-fun-able one.

[tannish2]

Strahd.

Without turning off his fanes or getting the Symbol of Ravenloft or the Daysword he ate us alive.

HE HAS LEVEL DRAINING LIGHTNING BOLTS!

very difficult, but not unwinnable, you know that right? also i beleive he is supposed to retreat if you kick his ass bad enough, which at level 10 should be EASY, if ever in situation again remember alchemical flares and taunting him
i would say a homebrewed gainst adamantine dragon animated by negative energy that returned 2x the damage we did as well as doing some insane damage of its own and doing negative levels without saves when you got near it, spell immuninty, and resistance or immunity to all energy types right after an army of elementals in an area where our summoner couldnt summon and we all had reduced strength that was completely unavoidable, the only way it was killed was with bringing up a rule with the DM about his preference for "psionics different than magic" since then, that has been my major abuse in the campaign, which without the omtimized blaster psionicist and DM who forgets to make anything psionics resistant even though hes using the psionics is diff than magic rule would be packed with TPKs, that and its in ebberon, which is the campaign of much cheese, then thre was the army of erinys with fighter levels and some sort of super invis and supermagic arrows that kill u fast, both my characters died, only one survived, and the super beyond great wyrm demigod dragon at level 8 i think... in the room full of lava (even though it was a black dragon(mostly), i know wtf) where we all took constant dmage from the rooms heat... and couldnt escape, because the dragon used a wish spell or some crap to block it off, and of course its impossible to teleport in any of these... i usually play with good people so we avoid total party kills, the only way we got out of that one was divine intervention

[Lord Lorac Silvanos]

We were around level 6-7 and we were charged with defending Hochoch (Greyhawk) against an assault led by a Frost Giant.

They are using spells to cover line of sight between the city wall and the catapults, so the the Cleric (Fharlagn) and I (Invoker/Necromancy specialist) decide to jump behind and take out the catapults with some fireballs.

We land some distance away and I start firing at the catapults with some success until we draw the attention of the Frost Giant leader.

He is many feet way so I am thinking; fine, I will fire a few fireballs at him and see if that helps.
At this point in the campaign I think the DM was annoyed with the effectiveness of my long range fireballs (it was not very impressive really), so the giant had Spell Immunity: Fireball.
When he came closer I had my familiar deliver a Bestow Curse on him (I was a bit desperate, but should have run earlier). I told him that the DC was 18 but he just laughed and said he made his save with 30+.
At that point we decided to withdraw!

My familiar was killed, so in fury I make one attack against the giant before I flee (I was polymorphed into a Griffon at this point). I did not hit, but was almost killed before I could fly away. (The Cleric had already fled)

He was using the Frost Giant Jarl out of the MM (and he gave him Spell Immunity: Fireball on top of that.

[Roderick_BR]

Six 4th level characters in 2nd edition, fighting around 30 or 40 1st level fighters on a *very* large ship.

The DM seriously thought we wouldn't have problems.
When we DID try to run away, a giant sea monster ate us. He never explained that, either. No, he didn't attack, us, he just... ate us, end of history.

[AslanCross]

6 Lv 5 PCs (actually, 5 Lv 5 PCs, the sixth was a level-adjusted Aasimar) against a Lv 9 Hobgoblin fighter, a Lv 4 Gnoll ranger and a Lv 5 Hobgoblin Wizard. (EL 9 IIRC)

Everyone's afraid of the fighter since he's big and carries a flaming greatsword, so they mob him. He's too tough to kill in one round, so everyone gets a turn. The hobgoblin wizard casts fireball on the party and everyone fails their reflex. The PC wizard was at 0 HP and everyone else was scorched quite badly. Things look dire.

Then the PC wizard remembers a few turns later that the ranger's animal companion should have had an AOO against the hobgoblin wizard. We "rewind" a bit, resolve the AOO, and the hobgoblin's Concentration check fails. <_< Hobgoblin dies with a critical sneak attack from the PC rogue, while the big hobgoblin is killed by a rather anticlimactic Electric Jolt.

[Yahzi]

We once fought a dragon who had N+1 hit points.

N being the amount of damage the party did.

This was the same DM who resorted to castle walls made of "solidness" to keep out my vicious 2nd lvl Fighter armed with a pick and an attitude.

[TSGames]

Well, right now my current group of 6 ECL 10 characters is fighting an army of werewolves. On top of that, the queen of the elf kingdom is leading the attack and commanding the werewolves via an artifact she's acquired. Not to mention that the queen herself has turned into a 20 foot tall werewolf with massive bonuses to grapple and strength(to the point where it's not hard for her to pick up and throw a party member), and she has an AC of at least 25(that's touch AC too), lots of fast healing, and energy resistance, and crazy saves.

Now, my party is resourceful, so some of us at least will survive the battle, but winning? It's gonna take a lotta luck to pull this one off(the werewolves have almost finished destroying our army of skeletons and and the human nation's battle grunts, so we're fighting a crazy werewolf queen amidst a sea of werewolves, soon to be alone, it does not look good).

[bigbaddragon]

On the other side of the coin, once when I was DMing, the party ended up split, and a 3rd level paladin and a 3rd level cleric ended up ambushing a 7th-level cleric and his 9 HD demon advisor. The ambush they had set up ended up working extraordinarily well and handily dispatched the evil cleric, but I expected them to run when the demon showed up (there were a couple of friendly NPCs not too far away that could have easily killed it). They didn't run. Instead, they killed the demon, too, without taking a singe point of damage themselves.

How exactly did the two of them managed to do this?

[Dairun Cates]

"You guys are level 6. You should be able to take the Adamantine Golem, right?"

The GM let us escape after he realized how bad he screwed us over. An Adamantine Golem is only CR 11 if I remember, and with a party of 6 or 7 of us, it was within defeatable range if we played smart... That would be if the Adamantine Golem wasn't near-immune to all damage dealing capabilities we had.

[tannish2]

there was one, level 13 party, 8 characters, VS army of great wyrm dragons, both shiny and shiny, and something adapted out of some weird somethignorother that later killed the army of dragons... that DM isnt terribly good

[Arbitrarity]

"You guys are level 6. You should be able to take the Adamantine Golem, right?"

The GM let us escape after he realized how bad he screwed us over. An Adamantine Golem is only CR 11 if I remember, and with a party of 6 or 7 of us, it was within defeatable range if we played smart... That would be if the Adamantine Golem wasn't near-immune to all damage dealing capabilities we had.

Cr... 23. Check the epic monsters in the SRD.

[Dairun Cates]

Cr... 23. Check the epic monsters in the SRD.

Doh! Yeah. Nevermind. Clay Golem. I have no freakin' idea why I said adamantine. Freudian slip.

[Chronos]

How exactly did the two of them managed to do this?

OK, previously in the adventure, the party had managed to capture some valuable loot from the cleric (including his really nasty intelligent weapon, and his partner's spellbook) through stealth. Between that and some good blackmail material, the party was able to convince him via anonymous note to come to a particular clearing in the forest to get his stuff back. When he got there, he triggered some sort of simple trap they had set up, found that the mace wasn't there and the spellbook was spoiled, and was getting attacked from the trees (where the paladin was hiding with a bow). He knows he's been hand, and he's getting desparate, and so plays his trump card: A special talisman which lets him call this particular demon once per week. He didn't have a calling diagram here in the middle of the forest, which means that the demon would be uncontrollable, but he had a very high Charisma, and figured that he could convince it to help anyway. Well, he probably could have, except right as he summons the demon, the party cleric manages to nail him with a Hold Person. The demon angrily demands to know why it's been summoned, gets no answer, and rips his throat out.

I don't remember exactly how the two players defeated the demon exactly, but it did involve one tiny bit of DM intervention on my part: In reward for an act of sheer badassery by the paladin in the way he attacked the demon, his deities granted his arrows the ability to bypass the demon's damage reduction. Other than that, it was just a lot of really lucky (but honest) rolls, and the powerful NPC showing up a few rounds later to find a dead demon, and wondering what the heck had happened.

[Sornjss Lichdom]

one time a my party rogue set off a trap that opened a reality mailstorm that sent us to the nine hells of baator. not a nice place, u know full of devils and what not.

[Draz74]

You mean besides the classic "Rocks fall, the rogue in the back dies"? (Which I've actually seen happen.)

2E. We were Level 3. We were up this enormous mountain-sized tree, and these "weird-looking birds" start swarming us and attacking. TPK without us eliminating a single bird.

After the TPK the DM reveals that the birds were an illusion cast by the local druids who were protecting the trees against us. Yeah, as if that weren't "using Rule 0" a little too much, the worst part was that we had never been given any hints that there would be druids opposing us at this stage of our quest, nor any hint that the birds were illusionary.

[Morty]

Not so much of battle, but still:
my first adventure in D&D. Rookie DM, two rookie players, half-elf mage(me) and half-orc barbarian. We were walking around some thick woods helping some god-forgotten village against bunch of kobolds, band of goblins and mysterious disappearings. Which wasn't all that bad by itself- even though we were forced to fight groups of 4 or 5 smart-fighting goblins using ranged weapons with no means of healing ourselves -the adventure was so extremely low-wealth that we could forgot about about healing potions and there were no divine casters in village- and for the first two groups without any ranged weapons. But from time to time we were attacked by some elf barbarian who shot us from distance with longbow and then ran away with 40 ft. speed.
Not a TPK all by itself, but I was darn happy that campaign had ended prematurely.

[Krrth]

Well, in one session I was present for, but not a part of, the DM had a party of 6 lvl 8 adventurers go up against 12 2nd edition Skeletal Warriors....wasn't pretty. The DM was a little distracted, and just picked the name without looking up the actual stats....