| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Sian |
Posted - 21 Jan 2007 : 22:53:09
hmm ... what are your funniest ways you killed your whole party (or ... that much of it that it causes a whole new campaign?)
here today i was playing with my group and they argeed that they should investigate the mines that the 'new guys in town' had taken control over ... forge a fake document for the town guard leader (the groups tank) and sends him down to look around ... gets caught by the 3'rd guard and gets thrown out (no punishment, yey!) and catching a dwarf following looking on him harshly till he (the drawf) flees ... goes to another members shop and talk for a bit and gets back out getting followed again ... catches the wannabe spy who starts yelling for the law and two of the dwarven guards come and arrest their guard leader for illegal trespassing in the mine and pull him into a sercet church in the mine for Abbathor, while kicking and screaming ... the member he was visiting tails them and wacth where they go and gets to their warmage asking him to fix it, whereafter she flees out of town ... The warmage borrows his masters Ring of invisibility and starts playing slilent killer in the mine ... which goes surpricingly good till someone discover his disposial area where he stacked a few corpses ... after a long battle which ends in him pulled out of the corner he pushed into and pinned and knocked unconsius he gets pulled down in the same temple as the 'former' town guard ... and both of them ended up getting sacrificed on the alter by pouring melten gold down in their lungs till they drowned
whoops  |
| 22 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Lady Morbannaon |
Posted - 03 Feb 2007 : 00:06:03
Just wanted to say as well I really like the idea of the gold being poured into them :) |
| Lady Morbannaon |
Posted - 03 Feb 2007 : 00:04:26
I've not got a TPK I almost had but one of the players pulled it out the bag and saved everyone. Two of the players had been reading the monster manual something I had told them not to do and so kept telling everyone how to defeat the creatures they were meeting so I started to get creative. I had them meet a half red dragon half troll which was only immune to cold damage.
One of the characters died because in his panic to try and do something he decided to hug the dragon/trolls leg so got hit by everything the dragon/troll had. Another character forgot to cast on the defensive so got bitten and died, the third got stood on and the forth flew away boosted himself up and then went back and dealt with it.
The group were a bit shaken up but its become their most talked about fight and they are glad it occured, they all took some lessons away from it and I don't have to worry so much about players reading the creature books now  |
| Tyr |
Posted - 24 Jan 2007 : 21:36:13
Just read up on the Helm of Brilliance, dear gods...
Later on you can just buy a few and use them as remote land mines with ranged attacks like the warlock eldritch blast shape Eldritch Spear. |
| MaxKaladin |
Posted - 24 Jan 2007 : 16:13:31
Yes, the Helm of Brilliance. It's one of the most spectacularly destructive items if it fails it's save. It has so many effects that will go off if it fails a save that I've seen it compared to a tactical nuclear weapon. |
| Sian |
Posted - 24 Jan 2007 : 13:28:34
Helm of Brilliance ... something like that |
| Victor_ograygor |
Posted - 24 Jan 2007 : 13:08:07
I rely enjoyed reading you post MaxKaladin, it mad me think back at the time when my players discovered the helmet (I forgot what the name was), a helmet with many stones. But it had the same effect as Necklace of Fireballs but worse – much worse.
I still don’t understand whey they had to fight that sweat mature red dragon, but a great explosion it made. |
| Tyr |
Posted - 24 Jan 2007 : 12:17:27
Gotta love explosive items :D
Necklace of Fireballs, killing their owners since 1987 |
| MaxKaladin |
Posted - 23 Jan 2007 : 21:42:01
I expect you will find few TPK stories that are funny from the player's perspective. Some of them are pretty amusing from the DM's perspecive, however....
I happened to write this up for a thread on another board about favorite TPK stories, so I'll paste it here:
This happened back in a 2nd edition AD&D game I ran in college. It happened more than 10 years ago, so forgive me if I'm a bit fuzzy on the details.
The party was in Cormyr in the Forgotten Realms. They'd gotten pretty powerful and were probably 12th-14th level by this point. They also had collected quite an arsenal of magic items, which shall become important later. They'd gotten a land grant and were at the point where they were establishing their own keep and settling the land. Unfortunately, drow raiders were showing up and causing havoc.
After fighting off various attacks on their lands, the PCs headed off into the mountains to try to figure out where the drow were emerging from the underdark and eventually close it off. They manage to track the drow to a cave mouth recessed in a chasm. They decided to set up an ambush and wait. Their tactic was to use magic to hollow out part of the chasm slope and then cover it with an illusion. A couple of the PCs could go invisible through various spells and items they'd accumulated. The idea was that they could hide behind the illusion and the invisible PCs could poke their heads out to observe then the entire party could spring from hiding when the time came.
Well, eventually the drow emerged from the cave mouth and were obviously on another raid. The PCs fell quiet as the drow were set to pass very close to their position and they planned to spring out and attack them from behind. Unfortunately, it turned out that one of the wizards who was with the raiding party was wearing some goggles that gave him True Seeing. He was looking around and did a double-take as he saw the party right through the illusion. He shouted an alarm and cast Cone of Cold at the assembled party members.
Now, normally this group could have handled the drow without problems. It was one of their own party members who did them in -- quite accidentally. There was a player who we shall call "Joe" to protect the guilty. Joe was playing a wizard and announced that he'd absorb the Cone of Cold into his Staff of the Magi (which was not considered an artifact back in 2e, "just" a really good standard item). The 2e version of the staff allowed you to recharge it by absorbing spells thrown at you and converting them to charges. One spell level became one charge. Thus, what he did was a valid move. It would save the party from taking any damage at all - except for one little detail...
Me: "Ok, you absorb the spell. How many charges does that bring you up to?"
Joe: "Thirty!"
Me: "Uh, staves can only hold 25 charges. Are you saying the staff was fully charged before you absorbed the spell?"
Joe: "Yes"
Me: "And you meant to do that?"
Joe: "Yes"
Me: "Ok, you remember what happens if you overcharge it, right? "
Joe: {Thinks for a minute} "Awww...."
Other Players: "GROAN!"
The 2e Staff of the Magi, if overcharged, would explode in a "Retributive Strike" unleashing all of the energy in the staff as a massive explosion. The explosion caused 1d6 damage for every charge, thus this staff exploded for 30d6 damage. Even this, the party could take. It was a fairly high powered game and they had lots of magic and everything else. That proved to be their undoing. See, if you failed your save (at all, not like in 3.x) your items all had to save or be destroyed. Some saves were failed and items started failing saves and being destroyed. Unfortunately, one of the other party members was wearing a Necklace of Fireballs and it, of course, failed it's save causing all of the fireballs on it to detonate...
To make an already long story a bit shorter, there was a cascade effect. The Staff of the Magi exploded and did 30d6 to the party all packed nicely together in their little ambush spot. The Necklace of Fireballs exploded and did a bunch more, items failed and were destroyed and several custom magic items with explosive potential similar to the Necklace of Fireballs also exploded doing yet more damage and destroying more items. The effect must have looked something like a fireworks factory exploding. I can't remember the damage total anymore, but it ended up being at least 100 points more than anyone had at full even if it was all reduced to half for successful saves.
I ruled that they'd been more or less vaporized and any surviving items had been looted by the very surprised drow.
Technically, one PC did survive. His player had to work that night so we had his character stay behind to watch the keep. When he got home (he was a roommate), I told him that his character was on the ramparts of the keep looking into the mountain when he saw a large mushroom cloud...
They learned their lesson about carrying around a bunch of dangerous stuff like the Necklace of Fireballs though...
Note for the Candlekeep crowd: The land grant was between the Hullak forest and the Thunder Peaks along the road from Arabel into Deepingdale. The drow were coming out of the Thunder Peaks.
It was a different group from the one I play with now, but I'm planning to insert fragments of this story into my Deepingdale game as local color...
Edit: Fix Formatting
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| Tyr |
Posted - 23 Jan 2007 : 17:21:13
The key is to use it as liberally as possible so as not to have much later on when you get hit.
Such examples include you bard and his new Necklace of Fireballs mk6 being whacked by the parties almost evil fighter(who doesn't know he has the necklace) with a torch.
End result 9 fireballs exploding in a confined space for a total 54d6(194 damage), save for half. |
| ShadezofDis |
Posted - 23 Jan 2007 : 14:19:52
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
After that session, there was a player-enforced ban on Greek fire for a long time. 
It's only ever a matter of time before the "player-enforced ban on Greek fire" goes into effect :) |
| Ergdusch |
Posted - 23 Jan 2007 : 09:41:34
I jsut remember my last campaign as a player that also ended in a TPK - my character was rewarded for his stupidity only with the 'gift' that his soul was merged into a sword. After the rest of the party found 'me' they decided to get me out of my new metal body and started traveling to the next and nearest cleric temple. On the way they were attacked my a huge gang of Frost Giants. Being of 8th lvl avarge that was a little too much for them. Only one that survived was I as an intellegent sword, lost somewhere in the snowy mountains of 'who knows where'!
After this TPK our DMs final words were something like:
'You know you guys - it kinda is convinient that you all died, cause I don't want to be the DM anymore anyway.'
We all got the feeling that he accomplished what he had in mind all along.......
So that would be my own TPK experience. Greetz Ergdusch |
| Rinonalyrna Fathomlin |
Posted - 23 Jan 2007 : 01:17:10
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
I've been part of a TPK... It really irked me, too, because the entire group died due to one comment made by one player. The rest of us didn't make any mistakes or bad rolls or anything, and we died. 
Ouch, that sucks. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 23 Jan 2007 : 00:54:16
quote:
Originally posted by Delzounblood
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Though Erik's character bought it in grand style -- 131 points of damage, in one round, to a 3rd level character! -- Mike fudged the rolls to keep the rest of us alive.
 EVIL DM
Believe it or not, it was a giant porcupine and a series of bad rolls that did it.
We encounter this giant porcupine. Erik's character is closest, and he decides to toss Greek fire on it. The now-flaming porcupine spasms, and sends giant flaming quills in all directions -- including thru Erik's character, since he had a bad AC and failed his Dex check. The quills don't just pierce Erik's character, they also pierce the magic shield that was strapped to his back. Make a save for the shield... Fails. The DM rules that since it failed, it, too, blew up. That explosion took out Erik's pack -- which had more vials of Greek fire in it. More failed checks. BOOM!
It wasn't all from one attack, but Erik's character did take 131 points of damage in one round. And not that it mattered, but he also failed his saving throw versus death from massive damage.
After that session, there was a player-enforced ban on Greek fire for a long time. |
| Delzounblood |
Posted - 23 Jan 2007 : 00:13:29
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Though Erik's character bought it in grand style -- 131 points of damage, in one round, to a 3rd level character! -- Mike fudged the rolls to keep the rest of us alive.
EVIL DM
I've had a simular exp with R'kid, It's amazing what a Red Dragon in a Bad Mood can do when your little brother is annoying you!!
Delz
 |
| Wenin |
Posted - 22 Jan 2007 : 23:24:00
I've been party to many TPKs. The most recent was when the GM pitted our party of 6 7-9th level characters against a horde of vampires.... one of which could cast Symbols of sleep..... Our first time encountering the spell, so we were all hit by the spell.
yeah, no saving throw.... it was fun..... NOT |
| Reefy |
Posted - 22 Jan 2007 : 23:17:59
quote:
Originally posted by Kaladorm
Like trying to nick a red dragons horde. That mistake was fairly fatal for our party 
It was white rather than red, but it was still might ****ed off. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 22 Jan 2007 : 17:22:05
I've been part of a TPK... It really irked me, too, because the entire group died due to one comment made by one player. The rest of us didn't make any mistakes or bad rolls or anything, and we died.
Earlier in that campaign, we almost had a TPK, but that time, the DM was more merciful. Though Erik's character bought it in grand style -- 131 points of damage, in one round, to a 3rd level character! -- Mike fudged the rolls to keep the rest of us alive. |
| Mace Hammerhand |
Posted - 22 Jan 2007 : 15:52:57
I never have "achieved" a TPK, although if the players do something very stupid I will kill 'em all |
| Grimbolt Hammerhand |
Posted - 22 Jan 2007 : 15:02:36
Well, whatever happens, happens but it shouldn´t happen too often
A few months ago I also killed a party. This was a combination of player mistakes, bad luck and monsters that were a little bit too tough. |
| Kaladorm |
Posted - 22 Jan 2007 : 10:10:56
quote:
Originally posted by Victor_ograygor
Personally I hate when the whole party dies, and when that happens it is because one ore more players
made are fatal mistake.
As a DM you always have a chance to give a hint ore a clue when the party are doing something fatal,
but yes sometimes it just happens.
PS: I like the way they were scarified. “By pouring melted gold down in their lungs, till they drowned”
Like trying to nick a red dragons horde. That mistake was fairly fatal for our party |
| Ergdusch |
Posted - 22 Jan 2007 : 08:44:52
Killing the entire party is harsh, but happens. However, somehow I neverm anaged to kill all of hte group members at once. Not that I were affraid of doing so, but after the demice of the first character the rest of the so-called 'brave adventurers' chickened and fled. 
So much for the glory and 'One for all - all for one' $&T$&%!
By the way, I doubt that drowning was what caused te dead of the chars. I bet they died from intense internal burnings, most likely, unless the priests of Abbathor cast a spell of Fire resistence on them first. Come to think of that - the should have!!!!
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| Victor_ograygor |
Posted - 22 Jan 2007 : 00:04:46
Personally I hate when the whole party dies, and when that happens it is because one ore more players
made are fatal mistake.
As a DM you always have a chance to give a hint ore a clue when the party are doing something fatal,
but yes sometimes it just happens.
PS: I like the way they were scarified. “By pouring melted gold down in their lungs, till they drowned”
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