Most Unplanned Party Wipe

[Bardsandsages]

Now as GMs, there are times when we really do try to wipe out the party. Either because we want to give them a real challenge, or because they ticked us off the previous session . But have you ever wiped out a party by accident with a quirky twist of fate?

There has only ever been one time I wiped out a whole party, and it wasn't planned. I suppose you could say it was there own fault, because they wanted to fight something when there was nothing there.

It was a Ravenloft campaign. The party was searching some abandoned ruins. Thing is, they really WERE abandoned. There was nothing there. I had actually deliberately put these ruins next to a town so they could find it and use it as their own little base of operations (because they had been complaining they needed one...). Short of saying "there is nothing here, you don't need to roll" out of character, I repeatedly described the ruins as being empty and no signs of anything. But they didn't accept the fact that there was nothing there. Maybe they thought they were just failing their checks because the difficulty was too high. I don't know. But they spent two hours searching for traps and slowly creeping through the ruins to find nothing.

So about fifteen minutes before the session was due to end, they started complaining that they didn't fight anything or find any loot. How could they get experience if they didn
t fight anything? Of course, if they had moved on with any of the half dozen quests they already had, they would have. But still....

So finally I said "Fine, I'll get you a random encounter." So I had one of them roll for the encounter. It came up a gnomish vampire.

Remember, this is Ravenloft...

So the gnomish vampire sneaks up behind the monk, who had declared he was standing off from the group to meditate. One failed spot check and a failed Will Save later, the monk is paralized.

So the other three decide to attack the gnome vampire. But the fighter drops a one on his first attack roll, and then fails the reflex save...promptly throwing his magical weapon across the room. The sorcerer had used up most of her spell slots during the searching in fits of paranoia on things like detect magic, mage armor, etc. etc and only had a couple offensive spells left. And the rogue tried to sneak attack the vampire...forgetting that undead are immune to such things (and yes, they had fought undead previously, she should have remembered this little detail both in and out of character!).

It was not pretty. I've never seen so many ones rolled in one battle.

 

[Land Outcast]

I win!!!

Random encounter between towns, in winter, a ravenous badger... (yes, BADGER, not the dire version, plain ol' badger). Only real hindrance was the snow, creating difficult terrain, but that was it.

Three characters, level 3... the halfling escaped barely alive.

 

[Dykstrav]

Yeah, stuff like that happens in my games, but it's mostly against goblins for some odd reason.

I had one game where the party was ambushed by goblins in the woods while they were camping at night. The monk had just hit second level and was feeling bad-assed because he'd just picked up Defelect Arrows. He waded right in beating up some goblins and relying on Deflect Arrows to keep him safe from their javelins. The goblins retreat in short order. He chases them with his awesome 5 hit points remaining.Three javelins later and he was dead: he deflected one, one rolled maximum damage (5 points, putting him at exactly 0 hit points) and one rolled a crit with maximum damage (10 more hit ponts, putting him exactly at -10). That player never had his characters chase retreating critters ever again.

In another dungeon, the characters encountered a single lowly goblin that happened to be a 1st-level fighter instead of a 1st-level warrior (based on the Snig the Axe mini, he was using a small greataxe with Weapon Focus and Power Attack). None of the players rolled higher than a 4 for their attacks rolls while I kept rolling 17+ for the goblin. Seriously. He dropped two characters into the negative and I described to the players how the goblin seemed to think he was outclassed against a party of five adventurers and was willing to hold his ground and didn't seem to be pursuing them. The player reaction was, "yeah, but it's just one goblin. We just have to hit him once."

They hit him twice, as a matter of fact. For 2 points of damage and then 3.

A party of five 2nd-level characters got wiped fighting a single goblin, entirely by lucky rolls on its part, and a combination of poor rolls and foolishness on their part.

 

[Dragonbait]

PCs vs. some orc archers..

This was the first battle for the group, and I wanted it to be easy. It was 5 characters vs. three orc archers (level 1 warriors with Dex 11, AC 12, 5 hit points, and short bows) at the beginning of the orc cave. The orcs were exposed and the PCs were in the woods (if they wanted, they could get concealment bonuses from the bushes and cover bonuses from the trees). Basically, I wanted the PCs to pown the orcs. It's good for morale to have the first fight go well.

3 PC deaths later the last orc finally died.

I still don't know what went wrong...

 

[Vague Jayhawk]

This happened recently. Party is in a dungeon and come accross a room full of orcs. The party is an underpowered fourth level.

The fighter and paladin go rushing in and find more orcs hiding. They get to single diget or negative hps and are almost surrounded. The rest of the party panics as they see the beatsticks get pummeled. Sorcerer does something I don't remember. The rogue does something I can't remember and then the cleric goes.

He gets in the doorway and is not able to get to the badly hurt allys. He remembers the necklace of fireballs given to him last gaming session and figures that one of those should clear some of the room.

Because he is throwing the fireball bead through traffic while squeezing with the sorcerer the DM makes him make an easy attack roll. He botches it. It falls short of the target catching everyone in a 3d6 fireball. Cleric fails his saving throw against the fireball. This forces the necklace of fireball to make a save. It fails. A 40' radius is covered in 88 points of fire damage. This is more than enough to kill all the PCs in the area. 4 of them.

 

[Schmoe]

In another dungeon, the characters encountered a single lowly goblin that happened to be a 1st-level fighter instead of a 1st-level warrior (based on the Snig the Axe mini, he was using a small greataxe with Weapon Focus and Power Attack). None of the players rolled higher than a 4 for their attacks rolls while I kept rolling 17+ for the goblin. Seriously. He dropped two characters into the negative and I described to the players how the goblin seemed to think he was outclassed against a party of five adventurers and was willing to hold his ground and didn't seem to be pursuing them. The player reaction was, "yeah, but it's just one goblin. We just have to hit him once."

They hit him twice, as a matter of fact. For 2 points of damage and then 3.

A party of five 2nd-level characters got wiped fighting a single goblin, entirely by lucky rolls on its part, and a combination of poor rolls and foolishness on their part.

That is awesome! Just think about how much experience that goblin got. He's probably back with the tribe right now drinking goblin brew and living it up goblin style.

 

[Vanuslux]

Well, this wasn't technically a party wipe...in fact there were no fatalities whatsoever...but it was a hair's width from being one of the most ignoble total party wipe ever so I'll share it anyway.

A party of five 1st level character's vs. a 30' climb down. The first character's begins their descent, fails their climb roll, and hits the dirt, going a couple points into the negative. The rest of the party has a good laugh at their fallen comrades expense (it was an evil party, after all). Then the second character tries and also becomes a dirt torpedo. More laughter ensues. Repeat for the third and fourth characters. All fail their roll and hit the dirt, going into the negatives.

The last character, the death cleric, makes his attempt and also fails...but still has a few hp left when he hits the ground. So he dusts himself off, heals himself first, then his party members...telling them he climbed down successfully and scolding them for their incompetence.

 

[Henrix]

That would probably the be the shadow domino effect (as I've related before).

Essentially the cleric goes down (after rolling a 1 on a turn undead attempt) to a couple of shadows. Before they vanquish the shadow he returns (1d4 rounds later) as a shadow. When all the shadows are down, so is another PC - who promptly returns as a shadow, taking another PC down before being defeated. At the end the last PC is trying to flee from his former comrade, but is caught up as the shadow passes through the walls.


Then there's the time when six of our characters died against six kobolds...but that was a long time ago (in a heavily houseruled 1st ed).

 

[Agamon]

TPKs usually happen when I go overboard on the challenge I present the party. I killed a party out of spite once when I was younger, but I was feeling tired (it was actually a virus coming on I'd soon find out) and wanted to quit. They refused to quit, so one 2E Hold Person spell later....

But the last time I used a truly random encounter (I don't use them anymore, partially because of this, partially because a fight for fighting's sake is no longer that much fun), 4 7th level PCs met 4 Hill Giants and the party lost initiative. The were on the way to start the adventure and all died. Not cool.

 

[Qualidar]

The last character, the death cleric, makes his attempt and also fails...but still has a few hp left when he hits the ground. So he dusts himself off, heals himself first, then his party members...telling them he climbed down successfully and scolding them for their incompetence.

That's great!

~Qualidar~