Li Shenron
Legend
So, damn, what do you do? I believe now the PCs should have been 9 or 10th level before this battle, my bad on that part. Too late now to correct. It's game on and if I play the Boss intelligently, it knows it's winning and simply has to spam Toll the Dead until everyone is dead. Looking for ways to throw in some (believable) chances for the PCs rather than mercilessly mow them down. Also, on a tangent, may approach the group again about limiting the # of attack cantrips one can cast between short rests. The fighter PC is probably not happy with cantrip spam at the moment...
These are my own ways to deal with the case:
Do's:
- tell them openly (in case they haven't figured out yet) they will likely all die, and remind them they can attempt to flee, hide or possibly even surrender, then obviously don't try hard to make them fail at those too
- personally I never permanently kill a PC without the player's agreement, so even in the event of a TPK I would offer them to discuss an alternative ending such as being captured, and continue the story from there
Dont's:
- fudge the rolls
- save their butts with a deus-ex-machina intervention
So by this do you mean they tried and failed or never bothered trying? If they failed, I'd want more details. If they never bothered trying, that's their mistake. Hopefully lesson learned.
My first guess was neither... it could be that by chance they simply didn't visit other locations where they could have gotten allies or supplies.