Frenzied Bezerker BBEG TPK

[Malum]

About a week ago I was speaking with a fellow DM about his upcoming Cltuthlu esk’ campaign. He told me his players had pc’s that were very very tough for there level (7th & 8th). They have appropriate magicals for the level, good spell selection and very good melee capability and were basically mowing thru the CR rating modules and campaigns he had them in, sometime half of them taking little to no damage at all. He stressed to me that he wanted to have a BBEG at the end of his current campaign that would really challenge his players.

Well in hindsight he says asking me to design the last room of the campaign was a mistake and he feels terrible over the TPK as do the players who were angry frustrated and ultimately with all dead pc’s.

Large room with a 15’ loft at far end and prison cages as he explained to me all over the floor. Up on this loft he originally had an Orc a bugbear and something else. I changed it to an old venerable Beholder with only his main eye working and 1 eye stalk with limited Telekinesis. I put a Frenzied Bezerker to melee the pc’s below. The cages were just traps the Beholder would try to trigger with his TK. I removed all other monsters just left a couple of them with spikes.

The party combated this Bezerker who absolutely cleaned their clock. The party was hitting him over and over until they all fell TPK.

was I over the top?

Malum

 

[Patlin]

To respond, I think I would need to know the stats on the frenzied berserker. However, most battles *could* result in a TPK if things go horribly wrong. It doesn't always mean that the battle was over the top.

Could always challenge the players to try the battle again, and see if different tactics and die rolls change the result.

 

[Magesmiley]

Well, my first observation is that when players are used to facing a particular style of game, they typically hone their abilities to that style of threat. Having an encounter set up by someone other than the one who usually creates what they typically face can make for a very difficult game.

In other words, it may be a case that the players were accustomed to using a particular set of tactics to take down their foes and their normal tactics didn't work as well this time, with them not realizing that they weren't working until it was too late.

Consider for example, a DM who relies very heavily on brute strength creatures and lots of damage spells. If the encounter is built by a different DM who utilizes sneakiness and area control magic and effects, the party may have a very rough time with the encounter, as they've built up one set of expectations and tactics and are suddenly facing something very different.

I'm not saying that this is what happened, but it it is entirely possible.

As to whether the encounter was too difficult, a lot of that is going to depend on the berserker. Any chance you could post up the specifics of the berserker?

 

[Jedi_Solo]

My first question is: what was it about the encounter that caused them trouble?

if it was simply bad rolls, then it likely wasn't over the top.

 

[the_mighty_agrippa]

I agree with the others. Without an idea of the FB builds, it is hard to judge. If the PCs relied on buffing and then a specific combat routine, that's their fault. If the FB just rolled a lot of criticals with a power-attackin, two-handin, sword-landin' attack sequence, that's just bad luck.

 

[frankthedm]

My first question is: what was it about the encounter that caused them trouble?

Chances are the fact a frenzied beserker does not die until his frenzy / rage ends!

The frenzy ability boosts strength a fair amount [+6], deals user 2 non lethal damage a round, stacks with rage and acts like rage [ lasts 3+ con mod, fatigued when frenzy ends, combo rage and frenzy and you get exhausted rather than fatigued when frenzy ends].

the class’s second level ability is taking a 5’ step between attacks using cleave/great cleave so slicing into a TPK can happen very quickly.

A 4th level of FB the character cannot die while frenzying except by massive damage saves and other effects that outright kill the target. -1000 HP and he can still be swinging.

 

[Kurotowa]

FB as BBEG are in the "almost impossible except for the achilles heel" class of foes. In other words, unless the players know they're fighting a FB and how you put one of them down, a TPK is nearly certain. The DM can seed information about them before hand or give a player a Knowledge roll after they've been fighting for a little while, but you MUST give the players the information somehow. Otherwise you'll have exactly what happened, the players desperately trying to kill a BBEG who by the rules Can Not Die. Which is a nasty thing to do when 99.99% of the foes you'll face will die when you hit them enough times.

 

[the_mighty_agrippa]

If a 7th/8th level party is fighting an X/FB 4, they are going down.

 

[Patlin]

Calm emotions and/or stalling for time would be very usefull, especially if you know what you are fighting.

 

[Malum]

The basics: It was a war of attrition. The players had a set amount of hit points vs. the FB who had unlimited hit points. The H-Orc FB was 10th level Barb/FB