KotS Total-Party-Kill!!

[Aservan]

If you roll a 20 on your death save you spend a healing surge and as normal you start counted the heal from 0 not your negative hit point number. If you don't have any surges left you are up a creek.

 

[Family]

As a DM I'm not going to pull any punches, on the other hand my group is running with 6 characters, and I'd rather "teach them a lesson" this early and then have them feal great later when they overcome "danger".

Of course this means less xp per capa but hey, c'est la vie.

-Mal: "May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."

 

[Nifft]

I wasnt looking for statistics, I was looking for your impressions. And too many hit points is one I can understand.

The other thing is: our group played with really good tactics -- we cleared the "second ambush" without breaking a sweat.

On the kobold cave fight, we used every resource we had, including some we should not have had (three glue pots and one stink pot), and spent most of our limited resources on Irontooth.

If he hadn't spent 5 rounds Immobilized, we would have been dead. And I don't think it's fair to expect every party to even have those resources, let alone to save them for this specific guy.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Puggins]

The characters in KotS are.... well, let's just say they're suboptimal. The Dragonborn Paladin has a Con of 12 and a wis low enough to only allow one lay-on-hands? Huh? The Dwarf has 31, not 32 hitpoints? Ouch. The cleric is a complete mess compared to the cleric from the delve. Come to think of it, that goes for the fighter too. You didn't do yourselves any favors by using the stock characters.

 

[DarkAngel1979]

I'm wondering how many of the TPKs happened in groups where the DM didn't read the encounter properly.

spoiler:
[sblock]
the kobolds inside the cave possibly are surprised, and the elites, including Irontooth, don't show up until 3 rounds after the PCs entered the cave. Unless, of course, a kobold fled from the previous encounter and warned the kobolds inside, in which case they are ready for the PCs and the 3 rounds clock start from the moment the kobold fled inside to warn the others, rather than from the moment when the PCs entered.
[/sblock]

 

[david_annable]

Well, I'm glad that I'm not alone.

So without any books to roll new characters, I'm sorta forced to have the PCs "wake up back in town" for arbitrary reasons. I may have them go back with the 6th character to try their hand at the cave encounter again (the kobolds having restocked and reinforced). There's too much XP tied up in that encounter for the PCs to simply miss out on.

I think all modules should generally include a few paragraphs offering DMs advice and ideas on how to deal with the untimely death of some or all of the characters. Quick references to places in the adventure where the party might find Raise Dead spells/items and ideas on how to change some of the encounters when a new party comes back to "re-do" them would be very welcome in my opinion.

Anyone do anything clever to get the PCs back into the action after a TPK in KotS?

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

We had a few TPKs during play, mostly due in that players weren't accustomed to using "group tactics".

Once they got into the swing of it, it went MUCH better.

 

[Family]

I know others are fond of captures or dues ex machina (npc?) or the group forming a new party coming across the comotion right after the last group's death.

I have a deity who is watching these destined heroes give them a second chance (anonomously). Like an autosave. When they "venture forth" a 2nd time they have fealings of what lies ahead (like deja vu).

-Mal: "We can't die, Bendis. You know why? Because we are so...very...pretty. We are just too pretty for God to let us die."

 

[JustKim]

I'm wondering how many of the TPKs happened in groups where the DM didn't read the encounter properly.

spoiler: the kobolds inside the cave possibly are surprised, and the elites, including Irontooth, don't show up until 3 rounds after the PCs entered the cave. Unless, of course, a kobold fled from the previous encounter and warned the kobolds inside, in which case they are ready for the PCs and the 3 rounds clock start from the moment the kobold fled inside to warn the others, rather than from the moment when the PCs entered.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say very few. I ran the encounter properly and read more than a few stories calling specific attention to the 3 round delay. With the suggested setup the encounter is very difficult.

 

[Vempyre]

The problem comes from teh adventure design itself.

It is a 6th lvl encounter, with an elite included, vs a 1st lvl party!

Only the last battle is about as hard, and by then the characters are 3rd lvl or 4th.

In short, that 6th lvl event happens way too soon in the adventure when the players have barely begin to adapt to their new powers and teh new rules. No wonder there is a lot of TPKs on that encounter.