Campaign Disasters!

[Knightfall]

Ok, what's the worst campaign disaster you've ever experienced as a DM and/or Player? And, as a DM, how many times have you fudged a die roll to avoid TPK?

For me, the most disasterous game lasted less than an hour. Our DM took us through a famed Greyhawk adventure where the party consisted of a character of each alignment that had to work together to avoid being annilated by a Sphere of Annilation. It didn't go well. Almost everone died and the two left tried to kill each other.

As a DM I fudged a die roll while going through the Isle of Dread module. They were facing off with the green dragon in the module and everyone, including my NPCs, failed their saving throws against the dragon's breath weapon. They would have all died but I decided to divide the damage done between all the characters instead of having them each taking the full amount of damage.

Cheers!

KF72

 

[Crothian]

Worse as a DM. Party got done clearing a house that was infested by demons. THe house was slowly being warped and they could stop it, so they ran to get help. Party was 9th level, no spells, no healing potions or ways to heal, not a single one of them above 10 HP. As they are leaving, about a half mile away so they are free, they are safe, it's another 5 miles to the city; they hear the booming laughter of the arch demon that was in charge of it all. So, they talk to each other realize they have no healing and are really in trouble, they know they have 2 days before they really need to have the show down, but they go back and face off with the demon anyway.

All died save one, they had the dice on their side. Still, I should have tossed in the DMing dice after session for that group.

 

[Silver Moon]

I'd say the biggest near disaster was three years back when the party found itself cornered in a dead-in corridor with a Wall of Force, and none of the characters had the ability to dispel it. The foe, an invisible wizard, threw a major Fireball at them, reducing most to about one-third of their hit points. He then turned invisible again as they tried to figure out what hit them.

I could have then cast his second Fireball, which would have killed them all. Instead I decided to have him use the round moving to a different location (the rationalization being that they saw exactly where he was, so might try attacking that spot in the next round and possibly distrupt his spell). So he moved, and a sorcerer in the party cast a Detect Invisiblity and then hit him with a missile. I had him then retreat. He did use his other Fireball a short while later, and then escaped again, but most characters had been healed by then and only one died.

And in 21 years of DMing I have only fudged the dice once to help a player. The dice roll indicated that the player's favorite character would have been decapitated by a Vorpal Blade, however in real life a close relative of that player had died during that week and he was seeking the game as a distraction, so I just had it do a lot of damage instead.

 

[sunbeam60]

Whoa! Yeah, so you are asking for it.

Ending the 6 year campaign that I had been a playing as a wizard, the party had to find 4 items to stop an expanding sphere of annihilation. We successfully get to the second item, which we had to swim through a long cave to get to. The riddle found on that second item basically tells us to not apply water in any form to the item.

For some reason, the party (me included, unfortunately) agrees to let a single drop of water fall on the newly acquired item … and, yeah, it blows up in our hands. Case close, world destroyed, we suck.

Regards
Toft

 

[Dungannon]

Remember the Giants-Drow series of modules? The one concerning frost giants? The one with the ice caves? Well we were in there when we were attacked by a rehmoraz (sp?). The party mage, I'm almost positive he was 12th level, decided to counterattack with a fireball. Ever seen what a high-level fireball does in an ice cave? It wasn't pretty. The cave collapsed, killing everyone but the mage, who happened to have a magic item, I can't remember off the top of my head exactly what kind, that granted him Protection from Elements: Water.

 

[Alzrius]

The second worst campaign disaster I ever had was when the PCs used a barrel of holy water on a giant half-fiendish mega-monster I made The creature was to be the huge final battle of the campaign...

The holy water was just a ranged touch attack, the creature had no defense against holy water, and a barrel was equal to so many dozens of vials...it died instantly, having had no chance of survival.

I wanted to cry.

What happened later on in that same session made that seem like an insignificant setback by comparison.

The worst disaster my campaign ever underwent was due to a combination of my unpreparedness, player innovation, a miscalculation of CR in a book, and ignoring a small DMG rule.

My players had managed to retain the services of a small company of low-level paladins (about 30 of them, about level 3 each) of them, to defend a town from diabolic forces, something I had thrown together to try and put together a suitable final battle for the campaign. Well, the leader of the devils (Prince Losknek from Blood Reign of Nishanpur, part 2 of Paradigm Concepts "Canceri Chronicles") appeared to taunt the heroes. Now, in the book, his CR was 40, when in actuality, he was worth much less than that (about a CR 14 in my opinion).

When he arrives, the PCs managed to bind him so he cant run or teleport away. They and the paladins each then proceed to douse him with holy water...given that he gets soaked by about three dozen vials of it, and that evil outsiders have no defense against holy water, he eventually dies when it becomes too much (in about two or three rounds).

Now, given that those paladin henchmen pulled the average group level down to about 3 also, and since he was CR 40, they earned an ungodly amout of experience points, literally. Millions and millions and millions of experience points....enough to boost the PCs all to level 94, and the paladins to level 93. They then proceeded to kill any gods who had pissed them off...

The whooping and hollering from the players, by that point, was so much that we ended the session and all went out to celebrate.

The campaign ended shortly after that...although we're thinking of meeting up at GenCon if enough of us can meet up there for a one-shot with those uber-mega-epic characters. We'll be talking about that campaign for the rest of our lives. It was great.

 

[demiurge1138]

Alzrius, I would recommend that you start making holy water very rare in your campaign worlds.

Demiurge out.

 

[Eternalknight]

A TPK while I was DMing. We were going through Against the Giants and the party were making light work of the frost giants.

Enter the two white dragons I decided to add.

I put them in to scare the hell out of the players. They were supposed to run. They didn't. TPK.

 

[dave_o]

!

I was PCing a few characters in my first ever 2E AD&D game (and, actually, first D&D game - ever). Edward the Chaste (Male Human Paladin 1) and Morbid the Mage (Male Human Mage 1). Yeah, it was hokey, but the DM proceeded to make the following giant, burning mistakes:

-- A nice, friendly little magic-user in the woods who had the ability to give our characters ANY MAGIC ITEMS WE WANTED. And did so. So all the Paladins had Holy Avengers, Dragonsbanes, etc. - at FIRST LEVEL.

-- A time bomb. No, a modern time bomb. 'Nuff said.

-- A DECK of MANY THINGS. Which he allowed us to Wish the cards out of.

Horrible, terrible campaign. I had my characters willingly die so I could leave.

 

[National Acrobat]

The Night Below, and I know a lot of people love it but the group that I was in that went through it had major obstacles to overcome in the form of the dm. He wouldn't allow Psionic characters and he provided no assisstance in dealing with the mind blast of the Illithids. So what had been a very rich and enjoyable campaign for over a year ended in a TPK when we were attacked by 6 mind flayers. Took less than 5 minutes to destroy about 1 1/2 years worth of campaigning.

Bascially everyone had to make 6 saves vs. mind blast at -4. We were all 11th level at that point, but try asking several fighters to make a save vs. spell in 2E at -4, even at 11th level. Then ask them to make 6. Then ask the rest of the party to make 6.

Ahhh!!!!!!!!!! The horror. We have not let him DM since.