What to do about half the pc's party dying

[Thornir Alekeg]

I'm curious to know more about the situation. You sound pretty certain that this situation will kill half the party. I usually try and avoid these situations if I can. If the situation is more than the party can handle and they can avoid it, I will try and find ways to warn them away. If they cannot avoid it beacsue that is the way the story line is runing, then I will make some changes to make it less lethal. If they are warned and just too dumb or not willing to heed the warnings, well, then I guess they asked for it.

I would give group the option of what to do next, either new characters for the dead, or a new campaign with all new characters. If a decision cannot be reached by the group, then you get to decide - assuming you are willing to accept either of these options.

[edit] just read the update which was posted while I was posting mine. Wow, not only are you firly sure it will kill half the party, you know which ones? How does that happen? Are you sure there is no metagaming going on? Again, I'll go with find a way to warn the party off. Maybe that's where some divine intervention comes into play. The player's still have a choice, but they have been warned.

 

[Delak]

I dont think its unfair, the encounter level is 13.5 and they are level 11 with specail abilities that brings some up to about 14 each. and there are five pc's and 6 enemies. all lower level by a few levels.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

You could of course choose not to slaughter them like sheep. It all sounds as if you intend to kill them, from the very thread itself to the "they scried them for weeks and now ambush them". Did you give them chances to counter that in any way, or are you putting them into a situation where they have to fight a bunch of difficult enemies (who know their weaknesses to boot) and they had to chance to avoid the fight or tip the odds in their favour?

 

[JoeGKushner]

Dungeon World and Oathbound work good for this. If half the party dies, the other half can go looking for them. Both are 'mini' campaigns in that they take characters from their primary campaign setting and 'trap' them in this other setting.

 

[Treebore]

I use God calls (1% chance per level, +5% bonus if they are clerical or role played as highly religious) and a patron. For my current group the Patron is a high level priestess (16th level), who Divines everyday about the party, so she shows up when they most need her. Nice legitimate in-game reasons for the party to be saved or raised, depending on what I want to do. Even left for dead if they die more often than their Patron is willing to raise/ress them.

However, she doesn't do it for free, and the loss of money and/or magic items for payment motivate the players to keep adventuring and to try and stay alive for awhile. But they get to keep playing their character for as long as desired/affordable.

 

[Wombat]

This is where you have to do some work ahead of time.

Parties in most games I see are a random assortment of folks who come together to gain loot and glory.

If, instead, you come up with a reason why they are together, including mechanics for why new people would join in, you have good reasons for a self-perpetuating party.

Examples: All the characters belong to a secret society. All members are from the same conquered area that is fighting for freedom. All the characters worship the same god. All the characters are part of a single guild. (there are many other variations along each of these lines)

I know this cuts into the utter freeform nature of character generation, placing some constraints on character background, etc., but in the end I have found this solves the problem of massive party deaths and continuity of quests and information. In our current campaign all the players are part of the same semi-secret society that is, amongst other things, trying to stock the most impressive wunderkammer (read: mini-museum) in the district. When a member dies, another member of the society can join the group and will understandably have most of the background information that the rest of the party has (not to mention having an immediate reason why the group would just trust the new character to join in).

 

[Timeboxer]

1. Divine intervention

I hate divine intervention. I've had it happen to my characters on a semi-regular basis, and it annoys me immensely because I really don't like the "You're so special that the gods come down and protect you" sense.

So I have decided that if the characters in a game I run really need to be raised, then, rather than divine intervention, they will have mortal intervention. By which I mean, various NPCs will go out, hunt them down, and then raise them. There can be various reasons behind this; perhaps, for example, the NPCs are clerics who received a vision from their deity, or -- my favorite -- perhaps some unscrupulous rogues are going around raising dead adventurers and are charging them exorbitant prices, so that they're in debt for awhile.

Not that those two are incompatible. But it lends this sense of, "You got lucky this time, but there was a penalty. Don't let it happen again."

 

[BlackMoria]

Why not let the players decide?

Simple solution. If the near TPK happens, let the players decide if they want to continue the current storyline or have a new campaign with new characters.

IMO, it is not productive to plan for that which may or may not happen. If a near TPK happens, it happens. Let the players decide at that point.

 

[Nathan Wolf]

I dont want to bring in new ones because the link to the story is already getting weak. There are only three members of the group that are the orginal characters and those are the ones in danger of dying.

Caveat: I obviously don't know the intelligence/aggresiveness of the PCs' opponents, so some ideas may not be appropriate to the situation. However...

To keep them alive, you can try the popular but underutilized Capture & Torture technique. Have a few NPCs take the three soon-to-be-unconscious PCs hostage and demand the remaining PCs throw down their weapons (or they'll use a readied action to bury their greataxes in the helpless PCs' heads). Or take them hostage and just run. I mean, if there really is a story connection, surely there's some useful information the NPCs would want to torture out of the PCs, or even just exacting lingering revenge for past offenses.

On the other hand, to be a RBDM you could try to get the PCs to fall for the "drop yer weapons!" trick, and then have the baddies kill their prisoners anyway. Then figure out a way to link new PCs to the story line. You're the author, be creative... or cliche even... long lost brothers, an unknown illegitimate son trying to find his father arrives just in time to see him killed by the bad guys, a jilted lover wanting her locket back has tracked a PC to the last place they rested, etc. Have fun with it, and make sure the players do too.

I would stay away from divine intervention, as mentioned above, and I would also say that with a little creative effort you probably don't need to start a new campaign if you don't want to.

 

[painandgreed]

There's always non-divine intervention. perhaps some noble, king, or head cleric is willing to have them resurected if they'll preform a service for him. At their level, they probably have some reputation and people will be wanting their services. if they have a reputatin for killing evil then the "forces of good' might be willing to chip in and have them resurected for the greater good of all. not to mention deus ex machina where some NPC shows up in the middle of the battle and aids them. Seems that as the NPCs were tracking the party, another NPC (or group of them such as another adventuring party) was tracking those NPCs and shows up intime to save the party but take all the treasure and stuff for themselves.