I was TPKed!!! [Archive] - Wizards Community

I was TPKed!!! [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
SmiloDan
06-21-04, 10:25 AM Well, the wannabe arcane trickster survived. It was a Dragonlance campaign, and we were in the sewers of the capital of Ergoth. The party consisted of a tattooed monk, a dwarf cleric, a female dwarf barbarian, the rogue/wizard, and my kender fighter-rogue with the spiked chain. Sure it was cheese, but it was fun. We're all 6th level.

Anyways, we're in the sewers and come across these things called Shadow Wights. They're incorporeal Undead with 6 HD and +4 Turn Resistance. So the cleric can't turn them, we have no magic weapons (except the monk's ki strike), and no way to hurt them. The rogue/wizard was smart and ran away. The rest of us fell. Not only are we dead, but the Shadow Wights do this thing where they drain our Charisma. When we reach 0 Cha, we ceased to exist. People forgot we ever existed, there are no records of us ever being! So it's like the opposite of going down in a blaze of glory. It's going down into oblivion.

So now the DM wants to scrap this campaign and run a D20 Modern one, which is fine. I just really wanted to play a spiked chain sneak attacker of doom.
Derren S.
06-21-04, 11:48 AM Sounds like that your DM wanted to kill the campaing off so he could start a modern one.
At least from the description it doesn't look like that those Shadow Wights are a suitable encounter for lvl 6 PCs.
SmiloDan
06-21-04, 12:31 PM One is a CR 6, and it was the 3rd encounter of the day. We fought 4. There were 5 of us level 6es, but it was still a bit harsh. EL 10, I believe.

Hopefully we can convince him to do an every other week campaign swap thing.
Edymnion
06-21-04, 12:58 PM Well, you said it yourself, the smart thing to do was to run away.
Why did you stay after you figured out that you couldn't turn them, and didn't have the weapons to hurt them? Yeah, when you have no way of hurting something, and its laying the smack down on you, you turn tail and run. Sticking around is suicidal.
Sereno
06-21-04, 01:26 PM Originally posted by SmiloDan
The rest of us fell. Not only are we dead, but the Shadow Wights do this thing where they drain our Charisma. When we reach 0 Cha, we ceased to exist. People forgot we ever existed, there are no records of us ever being! So it's like the opposite of going down in a blaze of glory. It's going down into oblivion.

I'm pretty sure your DM is just pulling this one out of his ... er ... out of thin air. Being drained of Charisma doesn't have anything to do with be remembered or forgotted ... it's just your personality. Characters drained to 0 just go into a coma, they aren't completely forgotten by everyone who ever knew them. :rolleyes:
danielinthewolvesden
06-21-04, 01:30 PM Originally posted by SmiloDan
. The party consisted of a tattooed monk, a dwarf cleric, a female dwarf barbarian, the rogue/wizard, and my kender fighter-rogue with the spiked chain. Sure it was cheese, but it was fun. We're all 6th level.

They're incorporeal Undead with 6 HD and +4 Turn Resistance. So the cleric can't turn them, we have no magic weapons (except the monk's ki strike), and no way to hurt them.

There should have been magic weapons in this party- why weren't there?
Derren S.
06-21-04, 01:31 PM I wouldn't be so sure there. I haven't played dragonlance yet, but according to the books erasing all evidence and memories about their victims were a feature of chaos creatures.
SmiloDan
06-21-04, 01:52 PM We began at 6th level with only 5400 stl, I think. Maybe less. My kender had a Circlet of Persuasion and 2 potions of healing and an everburning torch. Masterwork spiked chain and studded leather armor. That's it.
Scion of Coldshard
06-21-04, 02:43 PM 6th level is 13k gp, slight difference there ;)
SmiloDan
06-21-04, 03:44 PM Yeah, I thought it was less than normal. A magic weapon would have saved us. Oh, well. No use crying over spilt blood.
trapspringer
06-21-04, 04:41 PM Your wizard could have saved you with disrupt undead. Oh, he probobly didn't have it prepared. Those whacky wizards.
Scion of Coldshard
06-21-04, 05:00 PM or a magic weapon spell, greater magic weapon, everyone helping the monk do as much damage as possible, etc etc..

toss a magic weapon on someone, have everyone else do support, take one of them out every other round or so..

probably still would've died, but hey, go down kicking and biting! ;)
Dorkboy
06-22-04, 03:29 AM Originally posted by Sereno
I'm pretty sure your DM is just pulling this one out of his ... er ... out of thin air. Being drained of Charisma doesn't have anything to do with be remembered or forgotted ... it's just your personality. Characters drained to 0 just go into a coma, they aren't completely forgotten by everyone who ever knew them. :rolleyes:

In Dragonlance, the creatures known as shadow wights and frost wights (and there may be a third one, I don't quite remember) posses the power of "nullification", which works exactly as described. They possessed this power even way before 3rd Edition, in the SAGA version of the Dragonlance game.

But, since there's no hope for ressurection and it's a pretty inglorious death, DL DMs tend to use these things *very* sparingly. I think the DM just wanted to end the campaign.
Harmor
06-22-04, 03:38 AM Similar thing happened with my party but it was just a single Spectre that whiped us out...

Its always those undead...arg...

I agree...your DM didn't want to play anymore so he killed your party. Lame, but it happens.
Trydan
06-22-04, 03:43 AM I think the idea of undead that drain your reputation is a good one. What a clever idea! Just because it hasn't been published, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. And just because your Charisma drops, doesn't mean that your reputation (or notoriety) can't go down as well. So, congrats to the DM (although it sounds like a pity that he is switching to d20 modern).

Oh, and one other point, "TPK" stands for "Total Party Kill". If someone gets away, then it is no longer "Total". Pedantic, I know, but still...
lord_blackfang
06-22-04, 04:41 AM The DM wanted to kill you off and end the campaign, plain and simple. (heh, can it even be called a campaign if it didn't even last long enough for anyone to gain a level?)

It was totally unfair that he didn't discuss ending the campaign with the rest of you though.
Kheti sa-Menik
06-22-04, 06:23 AM Anotehr perspective. I've been playing with this very same DM in a thursday evening homebrew campaign for close to a year now(along with Smilodan may I add). The DM has never gone out of his way to TPK the party or even screw us up royally. He always has given the PCs a fair shot for survival in any situation.
And honestly, another point. In the past on Thursday nights, he has pitted us against some creatures that our party at the level they were at shouldn't have defeated. We use good tactics (mostly due to the two other players, not me), we've got a good all around mix of fighting, spell, and skill power, and often times we take moves that suprise our opponents. So give these factors, it could be a possibility that the DM simply overestimated the party's ability to deal with said undead vermin.
I'm not defending or offending, simply offering another point of view from having played with the DM for a while now.
Null Boundry
06-22-04, 07:10 AM Originally posted by Scion of Coldshard
6th level is 13k gp, slight difference there ;)

If I remember correctly DL has a somewhat unique pricing system. They may have had 13k gold but that would translate into different amounts of steel. Weapons cost alot more in proportion to everything else that normal.

Mindyou this is from a couple of hazy attempts at the game that barely made it beyond charecter gen.
SmiloDan
06-22-04, 09:15 AM My kender used his Combat Expertise feat to max his AC, then used Aid Another to give the monk a +2 dodge bonus to AC. So we had good tactics, we just didn't have the tools to use against incorporeal undead.
My kender was a fighter 2/rogue 4, with Combat Reflexes, Weapon Finesse, Exotic Weapon Proficency cheese (I mean spiked chain), Combat Expertise, Improved Feint. So my build was to sneak attack as much as possible.

So, I guess what I need now is a good build for a Fast 3 that wants to go gunslinger for an international strikeforce type D20 Modern campaign.
Will Brandiman
06-22-04, 09:25 AM As a DM this sort of thing has happened before. It's VERY hard to accurately judge how a monster will fare against a party. The CR system is, at best, an estimate. I've had monsters that I thought would be a real challenge die in the first round and monsters that I thought would be cannon fodder give the party a complete kicking. Your DM may have been looking to end the campaign early but he may just have overestimated your abilities.

Either that, or he expected you to flee and live to fight another day.
Pathanus
06-22-04, 12:39 PM Your DM should have allowed a Knowledge: Religion check to see if the cleric or wizards (with ranks) knew about the Shadow Wights.

I think your tactics were kinda good, but not great...
but if this was your 3rd encounter of the day, then it would be much more difficult (and if you had no idea incorporeal undead were around).

That sucks your DM didn't give you much equipment, I think you should try to frustrate him during the d20 modern campaign he thinks will be fun... (try to get him to do StarWars or another 3.5 D&D instead).
But I do know next to nothing about d20 modern...

My opinions above,
Path
SmiloDan
06-22-04, 01:04 PM The DM did give the cleric some Knowledge (religion) checks, but he didn't roll well, and we used up most of our fire stuff burning down a Jelly Cube. We just weren't ready, and we didn't run when we should. I was playing a kender, so running wasn't really my style. I was the guy who opened doors and poked into dark corridors without looking for traps and stuff.

The DM did a good job. I wish he pulled some punches, but he didn't. He played the NPCs well. I just think it's ironic that the one campaign he is running WITHOUT ridiculous critical tables resulted in an almost TPK.
danielinthewolvesden
06-22-04, 03:52 PM Naw - either the DM planned a TPK or he doesn't know his MM. He should know that his cheapness meant that the party didn't have magic weapons (and that's what the freaken table in the DMG is there for!:banghead: :rant: ) and he should have known that the monster required magic weapons to get through the DR.

It's just plain wrong to use several powerful monsters that the party can't get through the DR. One slow monster- sure (party can think of a trick, or get lucky or run)- but using several such monsters above the parties ECL is just plain wrong. It was that comb- monsters several ECL above th eparty, monsters that were mostly immune to the parties weapons, and several of such monsters that did the party in.

Your party was one ECL lower since they had poor equipt. Altho I admit that choosing a Circlet of Persuasion rather than a +1 chain wasn't too smart, the DM isn't supposed to kill the party over that.

:sad:
Kheldar Devaentar
06-22-04, 05:01 PM He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day. :)

Stupid cliche, but it could have saved your party. Why on earth would you stay and fight? :b:
ImmortalBlueMage
06-23-04, 04:41 AM FOUR Shadow Wights? FOUR?! And you were only Level 6? Geez, why didn't he just drop a Death Knight on you and get it over with.

I have to second Kheldar on this one, what were you thinking by staying to fight? It should have been clear that you had no chance of victory. Better to run and perhaps return at another time when you were better prepared.
BlackFiend
06-23-04, 11:20 AM 9/10 of all TPKs I'v been apart of were undead.
My recent bane...Dredd Wraiths. Freakin' nasty as hell if you aren't prepared to fight it out well.

The nasty part about them that made it a TPK...they have like a 90' move or something. You can't outrun them, though we tried and tried.

Incoporeal and fast = TOUGH to outrun by foot.
SmiloDan
06-23-04, 12:14 PM I was playing a kender, so I was really interested in these guys. Black Ghosts that fly through walls? Wow! And when it killed the monk, the special ability of the Shadow Wights made us forget the monk had ever existed, so our characters didn't know how tough the fight really was. We didn't know we had a casusalty.
Pathanus
06-23-04, 02:06 PM Our party recently faced a Dread Wraith too when we were about 9th level (it was like the outer shell of a ghost and might have been advanced, im not sure). We saw it coming, since it was a ghost first and then changed (DM magic!) so we were buffed up and the Paladin Super-damager used the Ghost touch longsword +1 and with magic missiles, we were able to bring it down without much trouble, but it's attacks are super nasty.

Any word on the d20 modern campaign yet SmiloDan?

Path
SmiloDan
06-23-04, 02:36 PM We're going to roll up the PCs on Sunday. It's going to be kind of like Charlie's Angels/Rainbow 6. I plan on being a Fast 3 that's going for the Gunslinger Advanced Class.
Sereno
06-23-04, 03:04 PM Originally posted by Dorkboy
In Dragonlance, the creatures known as shadow wights and frost wights (and there may be a third one, I don't quite remember) posses the power of "nullification", which works exactly as described. They possessed this power even way before 3rd Edition, in the SAGA version of the Dragonlance game.

But, since there's no hope for ressurection and it's a pretty inglorious death, DL DMs tend to use these things *very* sparingly. I think the DM just wanted to end the campaign.

OK, then ... I stand corrected.

BUT, I still think this is an amazingly cheezy ability. What if my character was a very social bard with hundreds of "friends" all over the world.

How much power does it take to erase all traces of my existance in the memory of EVERY person I ever met and entertained. What if they wrote something about me in their diary/journal does the page disappear, go blank.

Still sounds pretty dumb, to me. Legal apparently, but dumb.:rolleyes:
SmiloDan
06-23-04, 03:15 PM Yeah, apparently if an elf dies, her name is erased from the Tree of Life. It's a pretty bad ability. We couldn't even react to the death of a PC in character. It would have helped. We didn't know we had to run because when someone died, we didn't remember them fighting at our side. My kender had a 16 Cha, and I thought I was safe since I was running away and had 7 Cha left, but the DM was rolling d8s and not d6s. Oh, well. I bought the farm and I don't even get to put my name on the title!
ImmortalBlueMage
06-24-04, 05:36 AM Originally posted by Sereno
OK, then ... I stand corrected.

BUT, I still think this is an amazingly cheezy ability. What if my character was a very social bard with hundreds of "friends" all over the world.

How much power does it take to erase all traces of my existance in the memory of EVERY person I ever met and entertained. What if they wrote something about me in their diary/journal does the page disappear, go blank.

Still sounds pretty dumb, to me. Legal apparently, but dumb.:rolleyes:

Yeah, it's pretty brutal, but thematically, it makes sense. If you read the Dragonlance novels, Shadow Wights were created by Chaos, the father of the gods, specifically to not just destroy the world, but to completely negate all of existance. There's really no limit on the power levels, since Chaos was the ultimate destructive force, there was very little he couldn't do.
SureFoot
06-24-04, 08:27 AM Originally posted by Pathanus
I think you should try to frustrate him during the d20 modern campaign he thinks will be fun... (try to get him to do StarWars or another 3.5 D&D instead).
But I do know next to nothing about d20 modern...

My opinions above,
Path

May I strongly suggest *not* following this course of action? It's this type of pettiness and immaturity that gets people angry at each other for no good reason.

If you actually have a legitimate problem, try talking to your DM, Path, rather than trying to irritate him back. The only thing you will accomplish with revenge, other than perhaps a few fleeting moments of gratification, is making your situation worse.
Galnandros
06-24-04, 10:18 PM Originally posted by Pathanus
Our party recently faced a Dread Wraith too when we were about 9th level (it was like the outer shell of a ghost and might have been advanced, im not sure). We saw it coming, since it was a ghost first and then changed (DM magic!) so we were buffed up and the Paladin Super-damager used the Ghost touch longsword +1 and with magic missiles, we were able to bring it down without much trouble, but it's attacks are super nasty.

Path

yeah, and its 10' reach combined with spring-attacking-from-the wall-then-attacking-then-going-back-into-the-wall tactic was pretty brutal. he seems to like to use that tactic with incorporeal undead......ALL THE TIME.... :rolleyes:
was_fired
06-24-04, 10:23 PM Why wouldn't they do that? They are intelligent undead they should know how to best utilize their abilities. Plus you can still ready an action to take a 5ft step and attack it a fair one on one fight. More than one is a bad thing for you though.
Scion of Coldshard
06-24-04, 10:25 PM Just move up the hall/room a few feet. Move away from the wall. They cant see through walls after all ;)

Flying helps too, and things like rings of force that they cant walk through.
Zetal
06-27-04, 02:10 PM Ok in my defence i am the DM of the group who got TPK. Yes it was a battle that wiped the party to the mat.. But i do defend that i never preplaned for the party to die nor did i intentionaly try to kill the party off in order to play a diffent game. For I am not a person like. For if i would of like to play a diffrent game I would of put a vote to the party either to stop the current game or to go to a bye weekly game session by alternating the game worlds. that is how i would of done this.

Now i take blame on my error durring character creation i was a bit tired having a new baby in the house. I gave the wrong gold ammount out. Yes this was a mistake..

Second the party did have means to get around these creatures for reallity is I did not expect them to destroy them but to make the flee by just a torch light would make them go keep away.. Thus yes the party had used there valueable resources in just the fight prior and thus the cleric was unable to turn them at the time but if he had rolled a 19 or 20 by chance then there was hope with that option.. Also the cleric had used his bless spell in a previous fight in which it could of been saved since the kender was taking out most of the enemies with easy. if the cleric cast bless then all those effected are consider holy alligned and thus can bye pass DR by which the monster discription. So in reality they could have over come this challenge but they had used up valuable resource that would of made it easier.

And thus I truelly wanted to play a long Dragonlance campaign. But thus it was ended abruptly by a role of dice and that is the true reality of the situtation. It all comes down to players choice and the roll of the dice.
SmiloDan
06-27-04, 02:31 PM Yeah, Zetal did do a good job handling what happened. And everyone also stayed in character. The problem with the Shadow Wights is that when they are killing your companions, they also make you forget you ever had companions, so nobody is missing, and you don't know you are losing.

So when the monk died, our characters thought the party always had 4 people in it. When the dwarves died, my kender always thought it was just him and the arcane trickster wannabe. When my kender died, the arcane trickster wannabe was wondering why he was so crazy as to face 4 dark ghosts by himself after dispatching a gelatinous cube and a cult of assassins by himself earlier that evening.

I just always wanted to play a spiked chain master of sneak attacks, and this was my chance. Hopefully I'll get another chance in the future.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
SmiloDan 06-21-04, 10:25 AM	Well, the wannabe arcane trickster survived. It was a Dragonlance campaign, and we were in the sewers of the capital of Ergoth. The party consisted of a tattooed monk, a dwarf cleric, a female dwarf barbarian, the rogue/wizard, and my kender fighter-rogue with the spiked chain. Sure it was cheese, but it was fun. We're all 6th level. Anyways, we're in the sewers and come across these things called Shadow Wights. They're incorporeal Undead with 6 HD and +4 Turn Resistance. So the cleric can't turn them, we have no magic weapons (except the monk's ki strike), and no way to hurt them. The rogue/wizard was smart and ran away. The rest of us fell. Not only are we dead, but the Shadow Wights do this thing where they drain our Charisma. When we reach 0 Cha, we ceased to exist. People forgot we ever existed, there are no records of us ever being! So it's like the opposite of going down in a blaze of glory. It's going down into oblivion. So now the DM wants to scrap this campaign and run a D20 Modern one, which is fine. I just really wanted to play a spiked chain sneak attacker of doom.
Derren S. 06-21-04, 11:48 AM	Sounds like that your DM wanted to kill the campaing off so he could start a modern one. At least from the description it doesn't look like that those Shadow Wights are a suitable encounter for lvl 6 PCs.
SmiloDan 06-21-04, 12:31 PM	One is a CR 6, and it was the 3rd encounter of the day. We fought 4. There were 5 of us level 6es, but it was still a bit harsh. EL 10, I believe. Hopefully we can convince him to do an every other week campaign swap thing.
Edymnion 06-21-04, 12:58 PM	Well, you said it yourself, the smart thing to do was to run away. Why did you stay after you figured out that you couldn't turn them, and didn't have the weapons to hurt them? Yeah, when you have no way of hurting something, and its laying the smack down on you, you turn tail and run. Sticking around is suicidal.
Sereno 06-21-04, 01:26 PM	Originally posted by SmiloDan The rest of us fell. Not only are we dead, but the Shadow Wights do this thing where they drain our Charisma. When we reach 0 Cha, we ceased to exist. People forgot we ever existed, there are no records of us ever being! So it's like the opposite of going down in a blaze of glory. It's going down into oblivion. I'm pretty sure your DM is just pulling this one out of his ... er ... out of thin air. Being drained of Charisma doesn't have anything to do with be remembered or forgotted ... it's just your personality. Characters drained to 0 just go into a coma, they aren't completely forgotten by everyone who ever knew them. :rolleyes:
danielinthewolvesden 06-21-04, 01:30 PM	Originally posted by SmiloDan . The party consisted of a tattooed monk, a dwarf cleric, a female dwarf barbarian, the rogue/wizard, and my kender fighter-rogue with the spiked chain. Sure it was cheese, but it was fun. We're all 6th level. They're incorporeal Undead with 6 HD and +4 Turn Resistance. So the cleric can't turn them, we have no magic weapons (except the monk's ki strike), and no way to hurt them. There should have been magic weapons in this party- why weren't there?
Derren S. 06-21-04, 01:31 PM	I wouldn't be so sure there. I haven't played dragonlance yet, but according to the books erasing all evidence and memories about their victims were a feature of chaos creatures.
SmiloDan 06-21-04, 01:52 PM	We began at 6th level with only 5400 stl, I think. Maybe less. My kender had a Circlet of Persuasion and 2 potions of healing and an everburning torch. Masterwork spiked chain and studded leather armor. That's it.
Scion of Coldshard 06-21-04, 02:43 PM	6th level is 13k gp, slight difference there ;)
SmiloDan 06-21-04, 03:44 PM	Yeah, I thought it was less than normal. A magic weapon would have saved us. Oh, well. No use crying over spilt blood.
trapspringer 06-21-04, 04:41 PM	Your wizard could have saved you with disrupt undead. Oh, he probobly didn't have it prepared. Those whacky wizards.
Scion of Coldshard 06-21-04, 05:00 PM	or a magic weapon spell, greater magic weapon, everyone helping the monk do as much damage as possible, etc etc.. toss a magic weapon on someone, have everyone else do support, take one of them out every other round or so.. probably still would've died, but hey, go down kicking and biting! ;)
Dorkboy 06-22-04, 03:29 AM	Originally posted by Sereno I'm pretty sure your DM is just pulling this one out of his ... er ... out of thin air. Being drained of Charisma doesn't have anything to do with be remembered or forgotted ... it's just your personality. Characters drained to 0 just go into a coma, they aren't completely forgotten by everyone who ever knew them. :rolleyes: In Dragonlance, the creatures known as shadow wights and frost wights (and there may be a third one, I don't quite remember) posses the power of "nullification", which works exactly as described. They possessed this power even way before 3rd Edition, in the SAGA version of the Dragonlance game. But, since there's no hope for ressurection and it's a pretty inglorious death, DL DMs tend to use these things very sparingly. I think the DM just wanted to end the campaign.
Harmor 06-22-04, 03:38 AM	Similar thing happened with my party but it was just a single Spectre that whiped us out... Its always those undead...arg... I agree...your DM didn't want to play anymore so he killed your party. Lame, but it happens.
Trydan 06-22-04, 03:43 AM	I think the idea of undead that drain your reputation is a good one. What a clever idea! Just because it hasn't been published, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. And just because your Charisma drops, doesn't mean that your reputation (or notoriety) can't go down as well. So, congrats to the DM (although it sounds like a pity that he is switching to d20 modern). Oh, and one other point, "TPK" stands for "Total Party Kill". If someone gets away, then it is no longer "Total". Pedantic, I know, but still...
lord_blackfang 06-22-04, 04:41 AM	The DM wanted to kill you off and end the campaign, plain and simple. (heh, can it even be called a campaign if it didn't even last long enough for anyone to gain a level?) It was totally unfair that he didn't discuss ending the campaign with the rest of you though.
Kheti sa-Menik 06-22-04, 06:23 AM	Anotehr perspective. I've been playing with this very same DM in a thursday evening homebrew campaign for close to a year now(along with Smilodan may I add). The DM has never gone out of his way to TPK the party or even screw us up royally. He always has given the PCs a fair shot for survival in any situation. And honestly, another point. In the past on Thursday nights, he has pitted us against some creatures that our party at the level they were at shouldn't have defeated. We use good tactics (mostly due to the two other players, not me), we've got a good all around mix of fighting, spell, and skill power, and often times we take moves that suprise our opponents. So give these factors, it could be a possibility that the DM simply overestimated the party's ability to deal with said undead vermin. I'm not defending or offending, simply offering another point of view from having played with the DM for a while now.
Null Boundry 06-22-04, 07:10 AM	Originally posted by Scion of Coldshard 6th level is 13k gp, slight difference there ;) If I remember correctly DL has a somewhat unique pricing system. They may have had 13k gold but that would translate into different amounts of steel. Weapons cost alot more in proportion to everything else that normal. Mindyou this is from a couple of hazy attempts at the game that barely made it beyond charecter gen.
SmiloDan 06-22-04, 09:15 AM	My kender used his Combat Expertise feat to max his AC, then used Aid Another to give the monk a +2 dodge bonus to AC. So we had good tactics, we just didn't have the tools to use against incorporeal undead. My kender was a fighter 2/rogue 4, with Combat Reflexes, Weapon Finesse, Exotic Weapon Proficency cheese (I mean spiked chain), Combat Expertise, Improved Feint. So my build was to sneak attack as much as possible. So, I guess what I need now is a good build for a Fast 3 that wants to go gunslinger for an international strikeforce type D20 Modern campaign.
Will Brandiman 06-22-04, 09:25 AM	As a DM this sort of thing has happened before. It's VERY hard to accurately judge how a monster will fare against a party. The CR system is, at best, an estimate. I've had monsters that I thought would be a real challenge die in the first round and monsters that I thought would be cannon fodder give the party a complete kicking. Your DM may have been looking to end the campaign early but he may just have overestimated your abilities. Either that, or he expected you to flee and live to fight another day.
Pathanus 06-22-04, 12:39 PM	Your DM should have allowed a Knowledge: Religion check to see if the cleric or wizards (with ranks) knew about the Shadow Wights. I think your tactics were kinda good, but not great... but if this was your 3rd encounter of the day, then it would be much more difficult (and if you had no idea incorporeal undead were around). That sucks your DM didn't give you much equipment, I think you should try to frustrate him during the d20 modern campaign he thinks will be fun... (try to get him to do StarWars or another 3.5 D&D instead). But I do know next to nothing about d20 modern... My opinions above, Path
SmiloDan 06-22-04, 01:04 PM	The DM did give the cleric some Knowledge (religion) checks, but he didn't roll well, and we used up most of our fire stuff burning down a Jelly Cube. We just weren't ready, and we didn't run when we should. I was playing a kender, so running wasn't really my style. I was the guy who opened doors and poked into dark corridors without looking for traps and stuff. The DM did a good job. I wish he pulled some punches, but he didn't. He played the NPCs well. I just think it's ironic that the one campaign he is running WITHOUT ridiculous critical tables resulted in an almost TPK.
danielinthewolvesden 06-22-04, 03:52 PM	Naw - either the DM planned a TPK or he doesn't know his MM. He should know that his cheapness meant that the party didn't have magic weapons (and that's what the freaken table in the DMG is there for!:banghead: :rant: ) and he should have known that the monster required magic weapons to get through the DR. It's just plain wrong to use several powerful monsters that the party can't get through the DR. One slow monster- sure (party can think of a trick, or get lucky or run)- but using several such monsters above the parties ECL is just plain wrong. It was that comb- monsters several ECL above th eparty, monsters that were mostly immune to the parties weapons, and several of such monsters that did the party in. Your party was one ECL lower since they had poor equipt. Altho I admit that choosing a Circlet of Persuasion rather than a +1 chain wasn't too smart, the DM isn't supposed to kill the party over that. :sad:
Kheldar Devaentar 06-22-04, 05:01 PM	He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day. :) Stupid cliche, but it could have saved your party. Why on earth would you stay and fight? :b:
ImmortalBlueMage 06-23-04, 04:41 AM	FOUR Shadow Wights? FOUR?! And you were only Level 6? Geez, why didn't he just drop a Death Knight on you and get it over with. I have to second Kheldar on this one, what were you thinking by staying to fight? It should have been clear that you had no chance of victory. Better to run and perhaps return at another time when you were better prepared.
BlackFiend 06-23-04, 11:20 AM	9/10 of all TPKs I'v been apart of were undead. My recent bane...Dredd Wraiths. Freakin' nasty as hell if you aren't prepared to fight it out well. The nasty part about them that made it a TPK...they have like a 90' move or something. You can't outrun them, though we tried and tried. Incoporeal and fast = TOUGH to outrun by foot.
SmiloDan 06-23-04, 12:14 PM	I was playing a kender, so I was really interested in these guys. Black Ghosts that fly through walls? Wow! And when it killed the monk, the special ability of the Shadow Wights made us forget the monk had ever existed, so our characters didn't know how tough the fight really was. We didn't know we had a casusalty.
Pathanus 06-23-04, 02:06 PM	Our party recently faced a Dread Wraith too when we were about 9th level (it was like the outer shell of a ghost and might have been advanced, im not sure). We saw it coming, since it was a ghost first and then changed (DM magic!) so we were buffed up and the Paladin Super-damager used the Ghost touch longsword +1 and with magic missiles, we were able to bring it down without much trouble, but it's attacks are super nasty. Any word on the d20 modern campaign yet SmiloDan? Path
SmiloDan 06-23-04, 02:36 PM	We're going to roll up the PCs on Sunday. It's going to be kind of like Charlie's Angels/Rainbow 6. I plan on being a Fast 3 that's going for the Gunslinger Advanced Class.
Sereno 06-23-04, 03:04 PM	Originally posted by Dorkboy In Dragonlance, the creatures known as shadow wights and frost wights (and there may be a third one, I don't quite remember) posses the power of "nullification", which works exactly as described. They possessed this power even way before 3rd Edition, in the SAGA version of the Dragonlance game. But, since there's no hope for ressurection and it's a pretty inglorious death, DL DMs tend to use these things very sparingly. I think the DM just wanted to end the campaign. OK, then ... I stand corrected. BUT, I still think this is an amazingly cheezy ability. What if my character was a very social bard with hundreds of "friends" all over the world. How much power does it take to erase all traces of my existance in the memory of EVERY person I ever met and entertained. What if they wrote something about me in their diary/journal does the page disappear, go blank. Still sounds pretty dumb, to me. Legal apparently, but dumb.:rolleyes:
SmiloDan 06-23-04, 03:15 PM	Yeah, apparently if an elf dies, her name is erased from the Tree of Life. It's a pretty bad ability. We couldn't even react to the death of a PC in character. It would have helped. We didn't know we had to run because when someone died, we didn't remember them fighting at our side. My kender had a 16 Cha, and I thought I was safe since I was running away and had 7 Cha left, but the DM was rolling d8s and not d6s. Oh, well. I bought the farm and I don't even get to put my name on the title!
ImmortalBlueMage 06-24-04, 05:36 AM	Originally posted by Sereno OK, then ... I stand corrected. BUT, I still think this is an amazingly cheezy ability. What if my character was a very social bard with hundreds of "friends" all over the world. How much power does it take to erase all traces of my existance in the memory of EVERY person I ever met and entertained. What if they wrote something about me in their diary/journal does the page disappear, go blank. Still sounds pretty dumb, to me. Legal apparently, but dumb.:rolleyes: Yeah, it's pretty brutal, but thematically, it makes sense. If you read the Dragonlance novels, Shadow Wights were created by Chaos, the father of the gods, specifically to not just destroy the world, but to completely negate all of existance. There's really no limit on the power levels, since Chaos was the ultimate destructive force, there was very little he couldn't do.
SureFoot 06-24-04, 08:27 AM	Originally posted by Pathanus I think you should try to frustrate him during the d20 modern campaign he thinks will be fun... (try to get him to do StarWars or another 3.5 D&D instead). But I do know next to nothing about d20 modern... My opinions above, Path May I strongly suggest not following this course of action? It's this type of pettiness and immaturity that gets people angry at each other for no good reason. If you actually have a legitimate problem, try talking to your DM, Path, rather than trying to irritate him back. The only thing you will accomplish with revenge, other than perhaps a few fleeting moments of gratification, is making your situation worse.
Galnandros 06-24-04, 10:18 PM	Originally posted by Pathanus Our party recently faced a Dread Wraith too when we were about 9th level (it was like the outer shell of a ghost and might have been advanced, im not sure). We saw it coming, since it was a ghost first and then changed (DM magic!) so we were buffed up and the Paladin Super-damager used the Ghost touch longsword +1 and with magic missiles, we were able to bring it down without much trouble, but it's attacks are super nasty. Path yeah, and its 10' reach combined with spring-attacking-from-the wall-then-attacking-then-going-back-into-the-wall tactic was pretty brutal. he seems to like to use that tactic with incorporeal undead......ALL THE TIME.... :rolleyes:
was_fired 06-24-04, 10:23 PM	Why wouldn't they do that? They are intelligent undead they should know how to best utilize their abilities. Plus you can still ready an action to take a 5ft step and attack it a fair one on one fight. More than one is a bad thing for you though.
Scion of Coldshard 06-24-04, 10:25 PM	Just move up the hall/room a few feet. Move away from the wall. They cant see through walls after all ;) Flying helps too, and things like rings of force that they cant walk through.
Zetal 06-27-04, 02:10 PM	Ok in my defence i am the DM of the group who got TPK. Yes it was a battle that wiped the party to the mat.. But i do defend that i never preplaned for the party to die nor did i intentionaly try to kill the party off in order to play a diffent game. For I am not a person like. For if i would of like to play a diffrent game I would of put a vote to the party either to stop the current game or to go to a bye weekly game session by alternating the game worlds. that is how i would of done this. Now i take blame on my error durring character creation i was a bit tired having a new baby in the house. I gave the wrong gold ammount out. Yes this was a mistake.. Second the party did have means to get around these creatures for reallity is I did not expect them to destroy them but to make the flee by just a torch light would make them go keep away.. Thus yes the party had used there valueable resources in just the fight prior and thus the cleric was unable to turn them at the time but if he had rolled a 19 or 20 by chance then there was hope with that option.. Also the cleric had used his bless spell in a previous fight in which it could of been saved since the kender was taking out most of the enemies with easy. if the cleric cast bless then all those effected are consider holy alligned and thus can bye pass DR by which the monster discription. So in reality they could have over come this challenge but they had used up valuable resource that would of made it easier. And thus I truelly wanted to play a long Dragonlance campaign. But thus it was ended abruptly by a role of dice and that is the true reality of the situtation. It all comes down to players choice and the roll of the dice.
SmiloDan 06-27-04, 02:31 PM	Yeah, Zetal did do a good job handling what happened. And everyone also stayed in character. The problem with the Shadow Wights is that when they are killing your companions, they also make you forget you ever had companions, so nobody is missing, and you don't know you are losing. So when the monk died, our characters thought the party always had 4 people in it. When the dwarves died, my kender always thought it was just him and the arcane trickster wannabe. When my kender died, the arcane trickster wannabe was wondering why he was so crazy as to face 4 dark ghosts by himself after dispatching a gelatinous cube and a cult of assassins by himself earlier that evening. I just always wanted to play a spiked chain master of sneak attacks, and this was my chance. Hopefully I'll get another chance in the future.