TPK or not TPK

[Henry]

Re: speaking of FoF... [SOME SPOILERS]

I was stunned. This group was pulverized by this dragon. Between it casting Mage Armor on itself and using Darkness, they were screwed. It took less than 10% of its hp in damage. I felt really bad about it, but I couldn't backtrack. I stuck to my guns & the campaign basically ended. I'd warned them repeatedly and they kept asking for more. *sigh*

There's the rub. Combining Darkness with a creature with Blindsight is the killer combo du jour.

The one creature my players hate... hate, hate, HATE (with a capital HATE) is not a dragon, nor a lich, nor a big nasty beastie...

...it's a darkmantle.

That puny little 1 Hit Dice creature is the thing my players hate to fight more than anything in the Monster Manual. Between the guessing locations, the 50% miss chance, and the risk of hitting fellow PC's to free suffocating victims, those critters I randomly pulled from the Monster Manual make my players go into fits when they encounter them.

The first time I ever introduced them was right after I got the Monster Manual. The party had just hit about 5th level, so I decided to pull a "warm-up" creature out that looked like it was both new and fun.

One of this party's problems was the lack of a single spellcaster above 2nd level, but it didn't matter -- the legend of the "Son-of-a-****ing-Darkmantles" was born.

They've since warned me not to use Darkmantles against them again.

 

[spunky_mutters]

(3) The party (1st level again in a 2e game) is investigating the death of the local constable. He turns out to be a bit roguish, with some shady dealings on the side. He seems to have dirt on everybody, and there are few who could have had goodwill for him.

After digging around, they decide that it has something to do with an old mine on the outskirts of town. The mine was originally excavated by dwarves, and in this frontier area, they built defenses near the entrance to help guard against attacks. There are two pillbox type areas built into the hills flanking the mine entrance, with tunnels leading into them from the mine proper.

I have stocked the area with 6 goblins, 3 in each pill box. They have spears and slings. At this point, I don't want the party in here. The goblins are led by a barghest, who is the real culprit, but this whole things needs a little more unravelling before the PCs will really understand what is going on. They have actually come here looking for some dwarves who are illegally mining the area (they gave up rights long ago).

So they saunter up to the mine. The goblins throw their spears taking down the mage and one of the fighters. The players are in the kill zone for both pillboxes, they see what is going on (if they had scouted things out, they would have found a way to gain the mine entrance without passing here), and yet they decide to stay there and trade blows with the goblins. They fail to realize that they have crossed the threshold where the combat goes from possible to impossible. Without their mage, and with their cleric wounded as well (the goblines rolled really well), they need to retreat. They don't. Unfortunately, the guy who decided to attack the town in Twilight 2000 is one of those still up. His poor bow skills at 1st, plus their cover make this a poor tactical option.

The players made a stand in the middle of the road, until they were all down.

From my perspective, there's nothing I can do there. Some players just choose to die.

 

[FungiMuncher]

They fail to realize that they have crossed the threshold where the combat goes from possible to impossible.

Here's my related story, and only TPK.

The party of 7th - 9th level characters are investigating an ancient elven shrine with rumors of people becoming missing in the area. They discover the shrine is being besieged by a band of orcs, with a higher level half-orc druid leading them. During the course of investigating, they notice a small ship floating just above the tree tops. They deal with the orcs and druid rather well, but don't concern themselves with the floating ship. They take a week to hike back to the big city, and hire a bunch of NPCs in hopes of rededicating the shrine to their own god.

When they get back, they notice that the ship has landed, with a bunch of ogres and witches on the ground. They are greeted by one of the ladies, and she tells them that this shrine is now dedicated to the local goddess of magic, and that they best be moving along. Combat starts, and they're doing OK against the ogres. Then, the two enemy witches fling fire balls into the melee. The fighter/rogue leader of the party fails BOTH saving throws (rolling a 2 and a 3), and drops to about -25 HP. Everyone else makes at least one of the saves, and are doing fine. The witches hold their actions, telling them to "retreat now, or else." The remaining party members choose to attack. While they do OK for a couple rounds, the witches are eventually able to entangle or take out the lot of them. Those who survive, including the NPC hirelings, spend the rest of the lives serving the local goddess of magic.

The party was doing just fine until one of them went POP! I don't feel too bad about doing this. I gave 'em a couple of chances to back off, or at least to regroup and come up with another plan. Fortunately, the players were all rather good natured about it all. The only thing that I don't like is that they chose to restart at first level, in another part of the world. That's made it necessary to plan out a new set of plots!

FM