JollyDoc's Shackled City

[gfunk]

Thanks. I've DMed a few times, most notable I've taken the whole group through the Freeport Trilogy of modules and then into Monte Cook's Banewarrens. It was going great until the grand TPK at the end.

If you think JollyDoc is brutal . . .

 

[Lela]

If you think JollyDoc is brutal . . .

Compare him to Old One (ex-military stratigist). You play smart or you pull out your back up character.

What did you do after the TPK?

Hmmm, that's a good question for the general forum. *Gets coat on, digs out a map, and leaves Story Hour forum*

Wow, it's cold out there. But I got the Thread started.

 

[gfunk]

Sorry guys, couldn't keep the schedule. Too much work to do, but I promise to get around to it this week. Enjoy the rest of the weekend!

 

[JollyDoc]

Hmmm, have you ever DMed gfunk? Usually the best SH writers (such as you and JollyDoc) make excellent DMs.

You just have a talent for intigrating ideas. Making it all fit together flawlessly. Of course, your players might have a high mortality rate, but that's beside the point.



JollyDoc, how do the two timelines fit together? Or are you just setting that aside in favor of dramatic timing?

Yes, G has DM'd for us several times, and is an excellent game master, except for one tiny little detail. To date, there is not one adventure that he has run that the group has made it through alive...brutal!

The timelines are close together. Gfunk mentioned earlier that the group spotted a flight of red dragons overhead and astral skiffs, references to the githyanki invasion.

 

[Lela]

The timelines are close together. Gfunk mentioned earlier that the group spotted a flight of red dragons overhead and astral skiffs, references to the githyanki invasion.

Heh, I just thought of Elminster waking up to Cain proposing an Oath of Peace to him.

 

[Neverwinter Knight]

Very nice, gfunk! As another big Greyhawk fan, I am very pleased at Grimm's appearance. I hope he can put up with this stupid group (none of these even speak common, lol ) a little longer.

Their final days of travel were filled with violence as the party had to confront additional fiendish animals, Chaos Beasts, and even a Green Slaad. However, nothing could prepare them for what they met on that final, fateful day.

On the other hand, if that does not introduce a TPK, I don't know what...

 

[Lela]

Yes, G has DM'd for us several times, and is an excellent game master, except for one tiny little detail. To date, there is not one adventure that he has run that the group has made it through alive...brutal!

Come on, you gotta Give us More than That.

 

[JollyDoc]

Come on, you gotta Give us More than That.

I'll let G fill in the details, but he has TPK'd us on at least three separate occasions right off the top of my head...perhaps more.

 

[gfunk]

Let me see, let me see, if I can remember . . . .

Well,

[SPOILERS AHEAD]
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In the Banewarren's the party was TPKd in the Quann, a demiplane of monsters. I agree that I went a bit overboard with the CR, but it was their own damn fault! The last guy should have run away, but he just HAD to take on that Yuan-Ti Abomination Druid.

Acutally, JollyDoc, that's all I can remember. Though I did kill YOUR character, many times that hardly counts as a TPK.

1. You were killed at the climax of "Madness in Freeport" during the final fight at the top of the light house.

2. You were killed in the middle of "Maddness in Freeport" by that Tojanda.

3. You were killed by those Displacer Beasts in (IIRC) RttToEE (but that was Joachim's shot at a campaign).

 

[Joachim]

1. You were killed at the climax of "Madness in Freeport" during the final fight at the top of the light house.

Actually, that was me that died. The lowpoint during that encounter for Joe's character was when he got bullrushed off of a staircase to fall 100 feet below, but he survived.

That party was awesome. Everyone made their characters separately, and ironically enough, EVERYONE MADE A DWARF!! That rocked so hard, until we needed to be able to move more than 15 feet per round.

There was a near TPK in the first Temple of Orcus in that one mega-adventure (the name escapes me right now). We could have won the fight, but someone (*COUGH* LEE *COUGH*) forgot that he had a ring of three limited wishes. So my character (the Grimm prototype, named Gromm) died and his corpse was left to be consumed by an unholy cult while the rest of the party fled like cowards.

I enjoy DM'ing as well, and Jollydoc's character's death at the hands of the Displacer Beasts was the direct result of his reluctant volunteering to be the tank, and the rest of the group standing back and snickering as he was hit repeatedly by 3 D.B.'s from 15 feet away. When he finally tried to flee, they all killed him with the AOO's.

Then there was the time that I killed (or at least took down) Gfunk's Dragon Disciple. That was sweet. He had a high-AC tank type, and he decided that he was going to waltz right up to a troll at around 5th level. Two claws and a rend later...you know the story. Random Encounter this was, no less.

However, there are two deaths that I think must tie for the most ignominious in our group's history:

1) Joachim, et al, were travelling through a passage in the Underdark, when a random encounter with a Beholder, a covey of Hags, and a hill giant crossed our path. The beholder anti-magicked, one of the hags improved grabbed Joachim (who was blind, weak, and magic-less), and the hill giant proceeded to repeatedly beat the doo-doo out of him with his club. Humiliating.

2) Entropy was at 4th level at the beginning of the Speaker in Dreams. She should have been 5th level, but she chose not to partake in the last fight (coward!) in the first module of the Take Eight series, so she was awarded 0 exp for that fight. So, she was right short of 5th level, and we were in this bell-tower. We were travelling slowly up the stairs, she gets impatient and runs ahead of us and hits an Enervate trap. On a 1d4, a 4 is rolled. Dead Entropy.

Wow...that was rambling.