Can High Level Parties really die?

[JacktheRabbit]

I was thinking about this while doing a little planning for my own campaign. So far my players are low level but of course that won't last.

Can you really kill a high level character or even worse can you kill an entire high level party? Let us use the Defenders of Daybreak as an example.

As long as Velundo survives it is really impossible to kill anyone in the party permanently. He has all of the various raise from dead spells as well as Miracle for returning people who have zero body at all.

Now you could say that if Velundo dies then the whole party could die. But is this really true?

In their campaign there are litterally dozens of NPC's who would either out of love of the Defenders raise them all or if not that at least to gloat and make them return the favor at some point.


So how do you really kill a high level party? Sure P'Cat could kill all the Defenders but surely one of the prominant NPC's close to them would effect a return from the grave rescue. To say none of them would is a bit unfair and not very realistic considering the level of roleplaying PCat's campaign and most other high level campaigns contain.

 

[Wicht]

Pirate Cat's party aside, it is entirely possible to completely wipe out a high level party in such a way as to prevent them from ever coming back short of divine (or DM) intervention.

 

[Fenes 2]

If you want to really kill a high-level party, make the players want to restart the campaign, then add a grand finale where everyone is going to heroically sacrifice themselves to keep the world safe after every player is ok with it.

Or build an adventure where they have to enter a plane where all deads are soul-destroying, and nothing short of the Overgod's Overgod can bring them back.

IMHO, I don't see the point in killing off PCs, so I don't plan to kill any PC.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Ok.......

Now would you like to post up some examples? Juts saying it can be done without saying how is a waste of time.

Pirate Cat's party aside, it is entirely possible to completely wipe out a high level party in such a way as to prevent them from ever coming back short of divine (or DM) intervention.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Item 1. That is outside the discussion here. Obviously player boredom and make any death permanent.

Item 2. No cheese please. I want real reasons not cheeseball items designed to screw the players.

If you want to really kill a high-level party, make the players want to restart the campaign, then add a grand finale where everyone is going to heroically sacrifice themselves to keep the world safe after every player is ok with it.

Or build an adventure where they have to enter a plane where all deads are soul-destroying, and nothing short of the Overgod's Overgod can bring them back.

IMHO, I don't see the point in killing off PCs, so I don't plan to kill any PC.

 

[Piratecat]

Since it's my campaign we're using for an example...

I agree, it's pretty difficult. I almost did it when a psionic shadow strength drained most of them down to 0, but I think it's fair to say that if someone wanted to kill my group, they'd have to focus on taking out Velendo, the highest level cleric. If he can be killed, there goes true resurrection - and no one else in the party has the spell, so he'd return one level lower and unable to cast 9th lvl spells.

I have a plan, though! But I can't tell it here. *grin* Also, in an episode I'm about to write up, he almost died permanently. Serious stuff.

High level parties have LOTS of tricks up their collective sleeves. I can attest that the fear of death is still very near, though, so no one is getting sloppy or bored. (contact)'s theory is that once a cleric gets raise dead, death no longer is the biggest penalty for failure, so the DM needs to put in more important consequences for party failure (whether personal or political.)

 

[JacktheRabbit]

You ignore the NPC's though. In your campaign as an example they have a King they are loyal to who would hate to see his greatest troops killed. Also there are people like Ioun a archwizard trying to carve out his own kingdom that would love to get the Defender beholden to him by saving him.

Also there is the kid with the mirror. If the Defenders did all die it would be a matter of hours (days at most) I am guessing before he realized it and went looking for the right people to return the Defenders.

Sure all of these ideas would result in a loss of a large amount of magic items but they are all valid logical ways that a high level party could be TPK's and still come back. In fact I would argue that it would be extremely illogical if one or more of the above did not happen.

Since it's my campaign we're using for an example...

I agree, it's pretty difficult. I almost did it when a psionic shadow strength drained most of them down to 0, but I think it's fair to say that if someone wanted to kill my group, they'd have to focus on taking out Velendo, the highest level cleric. If he can be killed, there goes true resurrection - and no one else in the party has the spell, so he'd return one level lower and unable to cast 9th lvl spells.

I have a plan, though! But I can't tell it here. *grin* Also, in an episode I'm about to write up, he almost died permanently. Serious stuff.

High level parties have LOTS of tricks up their collective sleeves. I can attest that the fear of death is still very near, though, so no one is getting sloppy or bored. (contact)'s theory is that once a cleric gets raise dead, death no longer is the biggest penalty for failure, so the DM needs to put in more important consequences for party failure (whether personal or political.)

 

[Desdichado]

Ok.......

Now would you like to post up some examples? Juts saying it can be done without saying how is a waste of time.

C'mon! That's a silly statement. You can kill a high level party the same way you kill a low level party -- have something much more powerful than they are face it down in combat. Saying that some NPC would surely raise them is silly, as anything an NPC does is the DM's call. If he wanted the party dead, then no NPC would do it.

But, if for some bizarre reason you still feel you need more, make the force that takes them out be a cadre of Infernals from The Epic Level Handbook. Then, put the PC's heads on oubliettes from Legions of Hell and presto! you've got no more PCs.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

There is nothing silly about it at all. It it is actually quite simple logic.

The longer you run a character in a campaign with real roleplaying the longer you build up friends and enemies. If a DM is going to save long term foes for a party he is being an unfair prick if he does not also consider the long term friends a party has made.

To simply say that all of your friends and allies you made in your climb to 20th level have decided to let you rot is DM ruling at its poorest.

C'mon! That's a silly statement. You can kill a high level party the same way you kill a low level party -- have something much more powerful than they are face it down in combat. Saying that some NPC would surely raise them is silly, as anything an NPC does is the DM's call. If he wanted the party dead, then no NPC would do it.

But, if for some bizarre reason you still feel you need more, make the force that takes them out be a cadre of Infernals from The Epic Level Handbook. Then, put the PC's heads on oubliettes from Legions of Hell and presto! you've got no more PCs.

 

[Piratecat]

You ignore the NPC's though.

Nope. I really don't.

Kill someone far away from civilization and they're dead, dead, dead unless someone can recover the bodies or use a 9th lvl spell. In my game, the PCs are established as some of the most powerful people on the continent in terms of combat (not political) power. That means that the number of people who can perform miracles, wishes and true resurrections are few and far between. There is one other person in Velendo's religion who might be able to true resurrect him. Someone would have to find him and tell him Velendo was dead. Not to mention, churches and shrines are subtlely waiting for the old cleric to pass away, so that they can split up his corpse into separate relic pieces for all the churches. It's tough to be considered a living saint! So that may slow things down a bit, too.

More importantly, they have made a lot of political enemies, who wouldn't want to bring them back. Sure, their King would if he could, but Velendo is the only person he knows of in the entire country of Gaunt who can cast 9th lvl divine spells. Their surviving friends would certainly try to track someone down who could recover them, but it wouldn't necessarily be fast.

Most of their other allies (such as Ioun) are more allies of convenience or circumstance than best buddies. I get the feeling that the group doesn't trust Ioun (the most powerful wizard on the planet, as far as they know) any farther than they can toss him. Their dealings with each other are very... polite.

(As for Dylrath and his magical scrying mirror, it doesn't find dead things and it doesn't work underground. No luck there. You can't teleport deep beneath the earth, either, complicating things.)

So sure, if all of the PCs were killed in the underdark (where they are now) and assuming that their souls weren't trapped or their bodies turned into undead or something similar, surface allies may be able to bring one of them back, who would be able to bring the rest of them back. But it would take a while, I think, and that's fun in itself. When you have a bad guy's plot that moves forward regardless of PC actions, losing a few weeks or months makes a big difference to the campaign!