As DM, ever TRIED a T.P.K. -- and FAILED?

[Henry]

Several recent threads mentioning total party kills got me thinking about the ONE time I tried a total Party Kill (or knockout) - and failed. As a result of the events of that night, I awarded the surviving player with extra XP, because damned if she didn't deserve it.

SETUP: I was planning to run an 2nd Edition Adventure similar to the old "Slave pits of the Undercity." The PC's wake up stripped of all possessions, and have to resort to wits to survive and return to safety.

The PC's are hired to investigate a matter of a disappearance. Some of the party stays behind, the majority leave for a remote manor house. They arrive, are treated cordially - before a score of thieves with poisoned hand crossbow bolts, poison gas, etc. spring their trap. ALL of the party save one female halfling (played by a female player who was relatively new to the group) who fought for 5 rounds while simultaneously inhaling poison gas, taking damage from poisoned bolts every round, and making EVERY poison save each round (on average, she succeeded in 4 poison saves a round, and I watched every roll.)

She soon realized there was no hope, and then escaped by CRASHING through a first floor window for a handful of damage, and managed to get out of sight long enough to successfully hide in shadows. She then successfully avoided several spotter patrols, crept back to town to warn her comerades, who then returned with a contingent of town guard to investigate. Between the captured party members (in an attached dungeon) and the rescuers, they managed to wipe out the thieves, and solve the mystery.

Despite whatever I could think of, the PC (and player) survived multiple higher-level opponents, about (I'm guessing) 24 poisonings, and made it to safety with about 3 to 5 hit points remaining. I couldn't come up with anything logical to throw at her, and simple HAD to give her the escape, since to do a DM fiat and say, "they catch you. you are imprisoned" would have been blatant "killer DM'ing." As a result, an even BETTER adventure was born, a tale of the desperate prisoners, and the rescue party invading the dungeons to find their allies.

Anyone else have a player who bucked the odds of an INTENTIONAL TPK, and survived to "give certain death the middle finger?"

 

[Calico_Jack73]

HOLY SMOKES!!!! Yep, she deserved every last XP you gave her (and probably then some).
I'd have probably had the thieves position some of their number around the building to stop anyone from escaping. An invisible wizard would have helped too (casting Light on the Thief to keep her from hiding) as a Web spell could have caught her nicely. Still, gotta give you props for turning a failed TPK into what sounds like a great campaign.

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

Me: Despite all, bleeding and poisoned, you have overcame the theives' trap. The town finally comes into view. Sanctuary lies ahead.

Player: I can't believe it. I lived.

Me: Me either. *pretends to roll a die and look surprised* Uh-oh.

Player: What?...

Me: BAM! You're struck by a bolt of lightning!

Player: What?! How much damage?

Me: How many hit points you got?

Player: 14....

Me: What a coincidence!

 

[MerakSpielman]

...and then escaped by CRASHING through a first floor window for a handful of damage...

Sorry, couldn't help it, but this is a pet peeve of mine. Jumping through windows is nowhere near as casual a matter as adventure movies pretend it is. From Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics:

Saying that shards of broken glass are razor sharp is an understatement. A shattered window contains thousands of incredibly sharp edges and dagger-like points. It takes almost no force for one of these points or edges to cause a laceration. However, people in movies routinely jump through plate glass windows without receiving a single scratch.
Broken glass has at least two mechanisms for slashing a person diving through a window: its weight and its inertia. First, large heavy shards of glass can fall like guillotines, slicing off body parts. Second, when a person jumps or, even worse, drives a motorcycle through a window, the shards of glass tend to stay in place due to their inertia. The only way to move them is to apply a force. If the person's body provides this force by pushing on the edge of a piece of glass, it can slice right through clothing, skin, and flesh. In the real world, jumping or driving through a plate glass window would be suicidal.

That said, I'm not sure my players would be at all pleased if I made them suffer 5d6 points of damage for jumping through a window, so I'd probably let it slide, as did you.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

It's one of those things were D&D should more resemble fantasy (and fantasy cinema) and less resemble reality.

Grinding someone for jumping through a plate glass window, of course, is a great thing to do in Call of Cthulhu, and then call for a Sanity check for anyone watching.

 

[Sir Whiskers]

Anyone else have a player who bucked the odds of an INTENTIONAL TPK, and survived to "give certain death the middle finger?"

I was running a mixed group of players (newbies to old farts) in a campaign based on Timothy Zahn's book Blackcollar. They were basically a resistance movement in a city under alien occupation. They weren't paying too much attention to secrecy, so the security forces had closed in for the kill.

Before the session began, I warned them that I wouldn't pull any punches - Security saw them as a threat to be captured or eliminated, and they should keep that in mind. They blundered right into the trap in the sewers, had tear gas grenades dropping on top of them, lasers shooting down the passages, burly guards in armor with stun sticks closing in...and fought their way out.

I couldn't believe it. A few characters were knocked out or stunned, but the group worked together, picked their spot, and broke out as a group. I never underestimated them again after that.

I wish all my sessions could be that much fun.

 

[Henry]

That said, I'm not sure my players would be at all pleased if I made them suffer 5d6 points of damage for jumping through a window, so I'd probably let it slide, as did you.

Actually, I think I gave her something like 3d6 damage, and rolled 10 or so, if I recall correctly. (This was 5 years or so ago.) So it wasn't trivial, but not as bad as I could have made it.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

I think I'd let a PC wearing armor and a cloak go through a residential window without damage, especially if they could reasonably be expected to break the window just before they went through by leading with a shield or weapon.

 

[Hardhead]

Our DM decided to run an adventure where we were dead, and would play out small rolls in the FR novel Prince of Lies. Obviously, we had to die first, though.

Anyway, we were helping an NPC who we thought was a cleric of Helm find an artifact of Bane (that Baneites were looking for as well) in an ancient temple that had been sucked underground. Well, it turns out that when we found the artifact, he was the Baneite looking for the artifact (my character had suspected him of being evil all along, but was overruled by the rest of the group). Anyway, with the Mace of Bane or whatever it was called from Magic of Faerun, along with some undead that served its wielder, he kicked our ass, leaving everyone dead but my character, a Psion, who was 9th level with 8 negative levels, thanks to the aforementioned undead.

Now, my character actually has very decent saves, and due to another (but minor) cursed artifact we'd found earlier, I had Spell Resistance (but I was having to make saves to keep from turning evil). Anyway, all in all, it made it tough for him to hit me with his magic, which he was almost out of after killing the rest of the group, and he quickly ran out of spells with me still alive. Thanks to my insanely high AC (my character shines in that department), he could only hit me on a 20. Of course, given time, he would, and I'd die. I was totally ineffective against him, melee-wise.

So, I ran. We were trapped undergound, but I remembered a pool where an aboleth we'd fought earlier still lived. I managed to stay ahead of him and jump in. Thanks to an Ioun Stone I had, I didn't need to breath, so I gambled that (A) the aboleth wouldn't be able to hit me, and (B) there was an underground river it moved around in. I was right on both counts, and managed to escape, swimming the river and eventually coming out in what the DM described as a huge cavern with 200' ceilings.

I figured he'd be back the next day after getting his spells back, and I was no match for him, so I waited until the next morning and got my power points back. Psions don't loose PP when they get negative levels, they just loose powers known. I had enough negative levels that I didn't know *any* powers anymore, but I did have a special ability from my prestige class that was a Su ability. It was a sonic cone that I had to spend PP on it to use. The next morning, I managed to climb up to near the top of the cavern, and wait (without telling my DM exactly what I planned). When, sure enough, the badguy showed up in the room through the same way I'd come, and I blasted a cone of sound into the ceiling. Sonic damage bypasses object hardness and doesn't deal half HP to them either, so I dislodged a bunch of rocks. Due to DMG falling damage, it dealt 20d6 damage to him when they hit. The DM gave him a REF save, DC set at a lowly 15, to avoid. He had something like a +12 REF save, but he rolled a one, and perished instantly.

Later on, Cyric showed up masquerading as Corellon Larethian (my god) saying "If you want to help your friends, I can send you to the land of the dead. Just step through this portal I've created." I did, and it turned out to be a portal to the Neg' Energy Plane, where I died. Apparently, Cyric was (in the books) tricking powerful heros to their death anyway, so it wasn't *too* much of a stretch. But I was proud anyway, because *I'd* been personally killed by Cyric. I mean, that's gotta be bragging rights, right?

 

[Zappo]

Sort of; while playing the adventure down in my signature, the party was ambushed by demons and mercenaries while stepping through a portal. It was really hopeless, but the wizard's familiar managed to fly away carrying his spellbook. That turned out very useful later, in helping them escape!