How soon do you see warning signs of a TPK?

[Blackbrrd]

@Starfox 4e also has a lot less of those vulnerabilities than before, and the ones that are in are usually half damage or 5 less damage. 3.5 rogues with sneak attack or rangers with multiple low damage attacks have much more problems than their counterpart in 4e.

 

[wedgeski]

I regularly DM'd a 3E group that seemed to think that practically any encounter that reduced their hitpoints *at all* was an imminent TPK. "We're never going to survive this!" "What CR is that thing??!!" "That monster is clearly broken!" were questions and comments regularly heard at my table.

I greeted such things with my usual steely ambivalence. After years of such treatment, my instincts for a TPK have dulled somewhat, but like an earlier poster, I've found in the latest edition that combats often look much worse than they actually are.

 

[Wolf1066]

Sounds fun, if you had no sore losers.

Most of them were fine with it. One of the players was not able to make it for gaming that night so I told him the game was going to be terminated and his was one of the characters slated for death and all he said was "make sure I die well." So I had his character leap thirty feet down out of the AV and charge the tank in a final act of defiance... only to get blown to bits - revealing in his final moments that he was a full-body conversion (that was one of his character's closely-guarded secrets). When I told him later, he was well pleased with his demise.

A number of the others were blown up in the AV.

The one who was singled out for special attention - a really obnoxious character I've mentioned elsewhere - was told by the player who instigated the wipe out "you and I, mano e mano with fists." The player accepted readily as that was the sort of tough nut his character was - not to be put off by the fact that his opponent's fists were orbital crystal cybernetics. The instigator hit him once in the forehead before he could get a swing in. The instigator said, "let me tell you what just happened: a forearm spike which was triggered by the impact of my punch popped out then instantly retracted. Jake now has a neat hole in his forehead - he's dead."
The player did a double take and shouted "Cool!" He was really rapt that his character had been a sufficient PITA to be singled out for special attention and thought the manner of his demise was brilliant.

The only thing the players wanted to know after the group had been divided up into dead, vanquished and going to Europe was "who the @$%^ was that "Can Opener" character?" (The team had been plagued for weeks by a mysterious rival who kept beating them to any given scene, cleaning the place out and leaving disparaging messages and his "calling card" - an old fashioned spike-type can opener - for them to find.)

I then said "will the real can opener please stand up" and the player who instigated the TPK stood and took a bow - that plot had also been one of his - his other character (most of them were playing 2 characters) had enlisted a certain 11-year-old mugger NPC to help him get at the group by leaving derogatory messages and can openers for them to find while his own characters had the rest of the group as an alibi.

They mostly took it all very well and we spent the rest of the evening in animated and humorous discussion. The player who had come up with the can opener plot and wiped out the group was complimented on his ideas. (Don't get the idea that fellow players were the only ones to bear the brunt of this guy's inventive and devious mind - he threw me a large number of curve balls and caught me off guard repeatedly throughout the game as well.)

The only one who didn't take it well was a player whose previous character I killed off with no warning within five minutes of us commencing playing one night - he didn't even get a chance to join up with the other PCs... I gather he didn't take too kindly to having two characters summarily killed in the same campaign.

Everyone else rolled up new characters but he decided to pull out of playing in my games for a few years.

One slightly miffed player out of 6? Not too bad.

 

[D'karr]

I agree that 4E characters are harder to TPK, though it can happen.

In 3.X often a single die roll could be blamed for the death spiral, like a failed save or die, or save or be screwed spell.

However, I would hazard a guess that there are far fewer TPKs in 4E than earlier editions, particularly at low to mid levels.

I would disagree. I've been playing and running for quite a long time. I find that I've had more TPKs using 4e than any other edition before, combined.

Yes the characters are hardier and appear tougher at those low levels than on previous editions but once you're in the "unconcious and dying" corner it boils down to two things, a lucky roll, or the assistance of another player. Never mind if your taking ongoing damage. If you can't make those death saves your dead. If you've missed a couple of saves and someone doesn't get to you to assist, you're dead. If your in the negatives and that ongoing damage keeps piling, you're dead.

The long descent from zero to negative ten in previous editions was usually the only way to die, unless you got unlucky enough to be in the area of effect of another damaging attack.

In 4e there might be a long road down to the "unconscious and dying" phase, but once you're there, there are many ways to die. Oh, and don't forget that those failed death saves don't reset until a rest. Go down into "death's" territory twice in an encounter and you start with those failed saves already in your account.

 

[Ariosto]

When talking about TPKs, many people comment that they avoid, or try to avoid them. They capture the PCs or pull out some other "penalty" for failure.

In my experience with TPKs -- and I've DMed over a few in my 30 years of D&D -- there really aren't many early warning signs that one is coming. I've seen combats go from "challenging fight" to "Total Party Kill" in 3 rounds. Or even less. Hell, I've seen combats go from "supposed to be a cake walk" to TPK.

Just like we've all seen parties defeat the BBEG with one lucky shot/spell in the first rounds of a fight. Just like we've all seen parties on the brink of losing, suddenly come back and win. Sometimes the situation just bottoms out suddenly and I don't realize this *is it* until suddenly I see that *was it*.

As a DM, what warning signs have you seen to alert you that a TPK is going to happen before there's no time left to think about how to prevent it?

As a Player, do you regularly have a plan for avoiding a TPK -- even if it's just an escape plan for your PC only?

What are some of the most dramatic "suddenly it's a TPK" moments you've been a part of?

Bullgrit

Well, how does that happen?

Warning Sign #1 is whatever facilitates it, eh?

Oh, look -- "critical hit" rules!

A magic-user gets an average of 2.5 hit points per level, and blasts for an average of 3.5 points per level ... and these guys have decided that fighters are "just a drag". Or they're low-level and left the Elf (90% resistant to sleep spells and immune to ghouls' paralytic effect) at home.

And so on.

I can't recall a "sudden" TPK in my actual experience. That might just be a foible of memory, and a reflection of the insignificance to me of the distinction of TPKs in the first place from other slaughters of PCs. I can see very well how it could arise from the surprise rules in O/AD&D, though.

If something "supposed to be a cake walk" is suddenly a TPK more often than once in a lifetime, then it's time to check on how one arrives at that supposition in the first place. Does it have anything to do with actual statistics? How about those "lucky" dice?

Overwhelmingly, what I see is people not running away when a TPK is obviously what to expect if nobody runs away.

In my experience with 4e, players have seemed unusually reluctant to back off. If they have been trained to expect things to turn around because "the system works that way", then that could be part of it. Being used to there being only one way forward in a scenario -- through Encounter X -- could also be a part.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Overwhelmingly, what I see is people not running away when a TPK is obviously what to expect if nobody runs away.

This is one of the better takeaways I've seen. If you see something bad coming, start planning to get out, NOW.

Of course, to retreat you need to move faster than the things that you're fighting. Which, in 3e, with the 20'/round movement rate available to dwarves and fighters, was really hard without some form of magic. At higher levels, one of the casters could probably bust loose an emergency teleport (my nomad psion in Eberron kept his Greater Siberys mark in reserve as the Final Protective Teleport). We had a rather great fight once where we followed a retreating foe a bit too closely and ported into their gate room, and immediately had to Get The Hell out; the maneuvering for that, in a single round, so we could get out of the antimagic fields and ready to go, was really fun.

Then again, in 4e, such Oh Crap magics are harder to come by. A Ring of Retreat is nice for that, if you've hit a milestone.

Brad

 

[Bullgrit]

Hell, I've seen combats go from "supposed to be a cake walk" to TPK.

If something "supposed to be a cake walk" is suddenly a TPK more often than once in a lifetime, then it's time to check on how one arrives at that supposition in the first place.

Maybe "cake walk" is overstating the situation, but. . .

Party of 5 adventurers around 7th level. They've invaded a dungeon.

They spot a patrol of 4 Medium-size constructs (EL~5 -- cake walk challenge). They avoid the patrol, noting that it seems to be following a set route.

They move on further into the dungeon. They enter a room with four doors (including the one they entered by), and four statues. A programmed illusion appears in the center of the room to tell them to wait where they are for an escort to come pick them up. (They are invaders, and know they don't really want an "escort.") Unknown to them, the statues will animate if any of the other three doors are touched (EL~5 -- cake walk challenge, and a standard dungeon trope).

They spend some time examining the "fluff" of the room, and I mentally calculate how long it will take the "escort" (EL~10 -- tough challenge) to arrive, and how long it will take the patrol they avoided to get back to this room.

I'm thinking, this is going to be interesting. When they open one of the room doors, they will have to fight the room guardians (EL5). Then if they aren't on the ball to move on, they'll have to fight or flee the returning patrol (EL5). Then, depending on which door they open and exit through, they have a one in three chance of meeting the incoming "escort" (EL10). [They have a two in three chance of going away from the "escort.]

So what happens? They fiddle-fart around the room without touching anything, for a long time. So the patrol shows up, opening the door the party came in through.

A couple of the party tries to hold off the patrol while the rest of the party opens one of the other doors to move on deeper into the dungeon. The room guardians activate.

And to make it worse, which door did they open, and start fleeing through? The one in three chance to head toward the "escort."

So, instead of encountering an EL5 (easy), then an EL5 (easy), and then possibly an EL10 (challenging) fight one at a time, they get the whole gaggle at once (overwhelming), while the party is spread out through a room and down a hallway (terrible tactical disadvantage).

I realized something very bad was happening when they opened that door to escape the returning patrol. But actions were happening fast at that time, and I just let them happen as they were going.

Bullgrit

 

[Ariosto]

This is not a case of the same actual fight suddenly changing from a cakewalk to a TPK.

I don't know just how your game works, but in old D&D it usually takes about 7 hits to bring a 7th-level character into the neighborhood of death. The exceptions, such as giants dealing multiple dice of damage or monsters with venomous fangs, are not terribly subtle.

So, if a party of 6 is around 5/7 strength, that's about 30 hits for a TPK. At an average 60% chance of hitting, that would be about 50 attacks.

What does EL5+EL5+EL10 mean that's suddenly different than what it meant when you created that situation in the first place? Why?

Were those monsters somehow suddenly able to get in more attacks than one would have expected such a crowd to be in a position to get? Why?

Was it suddenly harder for that 7th-level party to weigh risk, and to escape certain doom, than it would have been for a 5th- (or whatever-) level party that would probably have been dead even quicker? Why?

 

[Bullgrit]

What does EL5+EL5+EL10 mean that's suddenly different than what it meant when you created that situation in the first place? Why?

I'm not going to argue with you about the idea of "cake walk -> TPK", but I will point out I think you don't understand what I described.

It wasn't originally an EL5+EL5+EL10 situation. It was an EL5 encounter. Then a different EL5 encounter. Then a different EL10 encounter. Those three seperate encounters were never designed to be together.

I laughingly like to compare it to WoW -- the party runs through the dungeon, drawing aggro and kiting everything together, and then being surprised the dungeon was so tough.

* You edited your post while I was answering.

Bullgrit

 

[Ariosto]

It wasn't originally an EL5+EL5+EL10 situation.

How did you change it from the original design, then? All I see in your account is that it remained as you had made it.

This is what I meant by having a look at whence those suppositions are coming.

The problem is less that you supposed wrong than that you gave the players no chance to suppose right.