All PC dead, what to do?

[Thomas Percy]

(...) post to delate, all I have to say,. I wrote in the post above, sorry mods (...)

 

[PieAndDragon]

Have a guild / ally / friendly temple reincarnate them all . PCs alive but in debt to another.

 

[LostSoul]

next non of the PC succedded on Listen -10 check

I think that the PCs should have been allowed to make a DC 0 Listen check after the first attack:

Listen DC Sound 
   –10    A battle

A sleeping character may make Listen checks at a –10 penalty. A successful check awakens the sleeper.

(Though I guess it depends how you define "A battle.")

I guess the next PCs should include a Wizard with Rope Trick!

How would I deal with it? First, I'd apologize for making any rule mistakes. Then I'd ask the players if they want to continue with the module. I'd give each player two choices if they wanted to continue:

1. Write up a new PC, same level.
2. Have the dead PC Raised, with the standard XP loss but with any XP gained during the TPK session.

I'd make sure the new PCs had a reason to be involved in the adventure (such as hunting for the Rogue who killed all the old PCs). I'd start the game with the old PCs (if any) being Raised, with the new PCs gathered there to watch. If no one wanted to play an old PC, then I'd start the game with the new PCs gathered around the bodies of the old PCs, while someone performs a Speak with Dead.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Why didn't they magically alarm the room? I mean, forget sticking a chair under the door handle, my players NEVER sleep without either A: A guard, or B: An alarm spell up. In or outside of civilization. This isn't an extreme level of paranoia, this is just a group of people that know they've pissed off guys in high places...

This seems like an unreasonable degree of paranoia to me. In the classic fantasy literature I can't think of any occasions where someone took pains to barricade themselves into a room in an inn apart from situations where they knew danger was imminent (e.g. being hunted by someone, in the vampires village etc).

I wouldn't want to either run or play in a game where such a level of paranoia was required all the time. Do they have to go to the bathroom in pairs too?

 

[werk]

Sod that. Starting over after 31 sessions, all undone by a stroke of bad luck? How's that not lame?

It's not as lame as keeping track of the number of sessions you didn't die in...

I'd personally say, that's what you get from published modules, but you also get a lot of good stuff too.

At 7th level , the party should be keeping a watch, or set up some kind of bell on a string security system...just because of the valuables in their rooms.

I'm going to travel across the land with a duffel bag full of money that I show to everyone that passes me by. No, I'll just sleep alone and rely entirely upon this crappy lock with multiple duplicates to protect me. If anyone needs me, I'll be in my room, soundly asleep...

This is just another challenge, but they failed this one because they were not prepared for it at all, and really aren't aware of their characters' situation. They know how their characters fight, but not how they live.

 

[Jubilee]

Others have offered very good ideas on what to do now, but I just wanted to comment of the fairness of the situation in the first place. I think the party deserved to die. Reasonable precautions could have been taken, but they weren't. I'm not talking paranoia here, I'm talking about reasonable precautions.

I don't agree with the statement that they deserved to die. I don't know the module myself, and I never saw whether the OP addressed whether the PCs had any reason to believe anyone was after them, or that an assassin might come after them.

In most of the campaigns I have played in, sleeping arrangements and precautions we may or may not take at night are largely glossed over. Usually it's a matter of "you get to town, find an inn named (someone makes up a name) and rooms will cost such and such money." We do usually set watches, but only once (in 4 years of playing) has something happened to our party in an inn room in the middle of the night, in any of several campaigns and 4 different GMs I play with.

So I guess my 2nd question would be - did the GM give the players the opportunity to take precautions? I can see not wanting to ask leading questions for fear of making the PCs paranoid, but OTOH, it's hardly fair to kill them because of a detail that has never gotten much attention in the past but has suddenly become of life and death importance..

/ali

 

[Paladin]

Be merciful...

Easiest fix: the rogue's weapon has the merciful weapon enhancement. All damage inflicted was non-lethal and would have knocked everyone out for quite a while. This way there's no need to change the weapon to a sap. Since they were sleeping, they wouldn't know anything anyway. They could've easily then been captured, and the next adventure opens with them each shackled to a wall in a pitch black cell...or something like that.

 

[billd91]

2) You mentioned your PCs are the agents of a 12th-level bishop. Perhaps one of his other operatives finds them and raises them, or maybe Father Barclay learns who they work for, and he contacts the bishop to request aid, or at leats some scrolls of raise dead. The PCs are now weaker than they were, and they are further in-debt to the bishop and/or Father Barclay, but they can continue. In fact, you can use this as an additional plot point. Why did the bishop have them raised, instead of just using new operatives? Have the PCs already accomplished something of vital import? Does it have to do with the Oinodaemon's curse on Listonshire? Or is there some other goal--either here in this adventure, or later in your campaign--that the bishop or Father Barclay has in mind?

I'd definitely go with this option. It sounds like the PCs were already significant people (having signet rings and some being inquisitors and all that) so that they'd be worth raising, even on the Bishop's own dime. Besides, it makes them even more beholden to him and that's an adventure hook generating gold mine for a DM.

 

[gizmo33]

This seems like an unreasonable degree of paranoia to me.

That's exactly what I would expect one of the dead PCs to say if someone cast speak with dead on him.

 

[Thomas Percy]

So I guess my 2nd question would be - did the GM give the players the opportunity to take precautions? I can see not wanting to ask leading questions for fear of making the PCs paranoid, but OTOH, it's hardly fair to kill them because of a detail that has never gotten much attention in the past but has suddenly become of life and death importance..

Yes, I gave them a warning, that a woman tries to listen their conversations with patrons, when they ate a supper, but they ignored this. But it's not fully their fault - they suspected the villagers hiden the child my PCs seek, so players thought they are watched because of this child.