D&D 5E As a DM, do I kill the entire party at the end? Im torn?

[ccs]

6) So I introduce a 'funeral' (slap them in the face clue) - the town inn keeper drags the dead townmaster to the town cemetery, the PCs watch, and the inn keep asks them to lend a hand with the 'other body'. They drag it around town, saying (again) how its the body of the big boss. One of them suggests looking at the BBEG house, but the others say no, not worth it. I try to push them into searching the house, but they go shopping instead (sigh)

7) When I start to panic about missing the big clue, when they next return to town, I make the inn keeper try and get them to reason who the 2nd body was - they agree (again) it was the body of the big bad, but were actually more interested in why the town master died. After 10 minutes of conversation options, they head off the keep (and the goblin/orc war) which leads us now to the conflict with the BBEG

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...-party-at-the-end-Im-torn/page6#ixzz45j2xEQcm

So I see you've given lots of clues as to things aren't quite what they seem. But there doesn't seem to be any clue that the BBEG has used some arcane magic to make himself invincible. I agree that your players seem remarkably incurious about the switched bodies but still I didn't see anything about his heart in particular.

I also think that probably because you've run this adventure a few times before you have very firm expectations as to how it's supposed to play out. I'm a bit surprised that you're not enjoying the "off-the-rails" nature of this current iteration. Isn't it helping to make it fresh for you?

I'll bet the fault lay in how the OP described the burnt body. An omission of detail that's now led to a fatal gotcha moment.
The Players knew the NPC to be female. So when they were told "in this room (of her house) you find a burnt body" they probably just assumed it was her because they had no reason not to & her house had just burnt up.
But "a burnt body"? Well that could really be anything. Her, a guy, a goblin, a frost giant.... Hell it could've been a Modron. The OP was expecting the players to ask something along the lines of "Whos'/what kind of body IS it?" But the players were under the assumption that the DM would've told them obvious visual things....

Then they help the inn keeper drag this "other body" around town. I'll bet you not once did the innkeep directly say "But x was a woman. This is a guy. Who the heck is he, why was he at X's, & where is she?"

But now the party already knows she's the BBEG, is alive & well, and is into necromancy. So they don't care. she obviously faked her death or something. And probably assumed that she wasn't stupid enough to leave evidence/clues etc behind. Especially after time passed where they went off & did other things. (I mean, you find that level of stupid in published modules. But you expect the DM to write better than that....).
Ok, they do also know that they need her heart. Right now they're probably wondering when the DM will introduce the clues that'll lead them to it/assuming they'll find it. Never realizing that they "lost" 11 weeks back when they didn't realize they were playing "20 Questions about the burnt body of a red herring".


I'd let the party attack her unprepared. Let them realize that she's nigh invulnerable. See if the party gets creative or manages to flee.
If they don't do either of those things & simply press the attack? Kill them.
And then after the game explain what they missed.

 

[Ancalagon]

After the reveal (in a v.large caven), the BB generates a large number of the undead laughs', says something along the lines of "play with my pets for a while, I have other things to be getting on with" then escapes down a secret tunnel. There is a battle, but 95% of it was the PCs verses the undead - they did not even come close to the BB and no magic was launched in the BBs direction.

There is a large difference between being driven off, and escaping.

Did the party learn in this fight that the BBEG was invulnerable? If no, why not?

 

[Wednesday Boy]

If not finding the heart means the final session is a foregone conclusion (TPK, low to no chance for retreat, unlikely creative solutions available, etc.), I think you should consider being frank with the players and narrate how the campaign ends instead of playing it out.

As a player I don't want my GMs to pull punches and I think player choices should matter. I'd be disappointed if I played in a day-long session (or sessions?) that would end in a TPK no matter what we did. I'd much rather the GM tell us where we went astray, narrate the finale, then use that day-long session to prep for the next campaign (Perhaps set in the same world years after the BBEG won the day.), play board games, or hang out.

 

[Shasarak]

Yeah, I still do not see anything telling the party that they need to find the secret Mcguffin heart to kill this guy.

If the party gets killed in a final battle with this "invincible" guy it is going to be super lame.

 

[EdL]

Eh? Why not?

There's even a 9th level spell (Imprisonment) designed specifically for the case of a BBEG who just won't die. Not that you have to use the spell specifically--you can work something out at lower levels.

Amusing idea: a 20th level wizard with Int 7 and Cha 20 and Resilient Con and Lucky has a Magic Jar DC of 12 and +11 to Cha saves. He literally cannot fail to survive his own death until you destroy the Magic Jar. He does have a bit of a problem possessing anyone but a mook in the first place though... will need to be patient.

Normal wizards just rely on the Clone spell though, or turn themselves into liches.

Oh, there are ways, especially if the DM is willing to bend the rules a bit (or already has house rules in place). I just ment that by RAW you can't chop someone up.

 

[Ancalagon]

Yeah, I still do not see anything telling the party that they need to find the secret Mcguffin heart to kill this guy.

If the party gets killed in a final battle with this "invincible" guy it is going to be super lame.

I concur. I don't understand how the funeral scene was meant to be a clue. The party logically concluded that the BBEG faked his own death. Big deal, people do that in real life! The party hasn't bothered investigating because they think that they know what occurred.

 

[Psikerlord#]

The thing is, it's sometimes REALLY hard to hurt or kill PCs for some DMs. The truth for most DMs is we want to be good at what we do, create a story and a campaign that lights up the players eyes and has them ranting about the excitement of it. The first time I killed a PC, was the most exciting session we had all had. He was our party wizard. He and the party were up against an adult red dragon that was tactically using it's ability to fly to its advantage. It stayed 60ft up as it reigned fire upon the party below. The best offensive spell the wizard had memorised at the time was blight, range 30ft, but he also had misty step.... He used misty step (bonus action) to teleport 30ft up into the air, followed by his blight spell, dealing massive damage before falling down to the ground, taking fall damage. Still JUST alive after his fall, he looked up only to find the red dragon descend upon him in an arrogant rage. The creature was foolish in doing so. It brutally opened up the party wizard, tearing him in two in a spray of gore, but was now on the ground as a result. The angry party screaming out their "NOOOO's" as they all charged the creature, NOVA striking with everything they had, killing it and beheading it with roars of righteous fury.

This is gaming gold and the exact sort of encounter you will always remember. So awesome!

 

[Shasarak]

I concur. I don't understand how the funeral scene was meant to be a clue. The party logically concluded that the BBEG faked his own death. Big deal, people do that in real life! The party hasn't bothered investigating because they think that they know what occurred.

If it is some kind of Tomb of Horrors style game then, yeah of course you did not memorise that one spell that could hurt the bad guy so you are dead haha. But otherwise yeah nah.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Last night my party spent quite a while figuring out how to not get killed by a trap that they (correctly) assumed must be there because of the bisected kobold corpse on one side of the room with his footprints leading up to a statue in the otherwise undisturbed dust of the room.

There was a lot of thinking and a little bit of experimentation. I probably repeated my description of the room about 4 times while they were going through it, just to make sure they weren't missing something I thought was clear. I still haven't figured out how to explain things in such a way that the players get the proper picture in their head. My friend has the exact same problem when he DMs, so maybe it's not unusual. You have a very clear picture in your head, but it can take a bit of doing to make sure the players' vision is the same as your own, and in some situations it matters. (In this situation they did finally figure out the safest and most rewarding way to deal with situation, getting the item and not setting off the trap. They could have tried other techniques, but they might have been riskier.)

So what I'm thinking is that, dumb as it sounds, maybe you just need to recap everything they've experienced a couple of times. Don't obviously call attention to the things they need to be paying attention to, but do make sure to include things in passing that the characters would have noticed but the players might have missed. So no, "did I mention that part about how you learned that that you can't kill BBG without destroying the heart that isn't in her body first?" but maybe something like, "...and then you found that note mentioning something about a heart..."

 

[ccs]

Yeah, I still do not see anything telling the party that they need to find the secret Mcguffin heart to kill this guy.

If the party gets killed in a final battle with this "invincible" guy it is going to be super lame.

I think it's this from post #51: 4) A story quest which they finding clues which they understand means they need to find and destroy the BBEGs heart to destroy the BBEG

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...-party-at-the-end-Im-torn/page6#ixzz45lWTDd1g

Is it possible that they are under the impression that to kill her they have to stake her through the heart - like a vampire?
That they've missed the info that her heart isn't in her body?