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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steel_Wind" data-source="post: 5177413" data-attributes="member: 20741">Uhmmm. *sigh*  Let's leave behind the sugar-coating.  When you have a TPK from a wandering monster? Yeah - usually that means the DM screwed up.Absent complete idiocy on the players' part, throwing any wandering monster at a party which has the capability to take out the party from just a "wandering monster" is almost always simply an excessive encounter.  You can't blame "average" bad luck for that either , as the possibility of "average" bad luck must be taken into account when the DM selects a foe.  Wandering monsters are old skool "keep em on their toes" means of disrupting the party and consuming resources so that the party is not at its best for the main encounters and the boss battle in ... whatever dungeon it is that they are in.But usually when the wandering monster TPKs the party? Yeah that's a pretty crappy encounter. So ask yourself a question: Q: If the bleeding had not stacked  - would the party have survived? If the answer is "yes", then we're done. The real issue is that you screwed up in  a misapplication of a specific Rule.  It happens and most of us have been there. *shrug*In the answer is NO and you think they would have died anyway even if the bleeding rules had not stacked - then the reason for the TPK was because:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> the Players would have died as their tactics were utterly reckless and ill-suited to the challenge -- PLAYERS' FAULT;</li> </ul>OR<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">the Players would have died as their rolls were just utterly terrible and the monster's rolls were way beyond any measure of  "good" luck that could reasonably have been expected -- FATE's FAULT;</li> </ul>       OR<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> the Players would have died as they were overmatched by the power of the monster's excessive hit points, significant magical defences and resistances, and overall general lethality -- DM's FAULT</li> </ul>Pick the appropriate answer. You were there -- we weren't.It's not really much more complicated than that and I expect you know the answers to these things already.Done is done. As long as there isn't siginificant ill feelings  from your players or any emotional fallout that will effect the next game - then just chalk it up as "not your favorite gaming moment" and move on.</blockquote>

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