Total Party Kill

This post is part of a series. Click here to go to part 1.

If you want to hear us discuss this topic on our podcast, listen here.

Calendar start: November 25

Calendar end: November 27

Keldo - Dwarven Vaultguard Priest

Theren Theon - Elven Arcanist Guardian

Patrice - Elven Nightblade

Katie - Human Cleric

The party was joined by Patrice the Elven Nightblade and Katie the Exorcist Cleric, who were hired by Keldo to continue the expedition into the mountain. For the players of Patrice and Katie, this was their first experience with D&D. They were excited but nervous to participate.

Keldo had arranged to meet the newcomers in the tavern in Muntberg, which is about three hours south of Dwimmermount. The interview was brief, and they seemed capable. In short order, the team was headed to the mountain.

Before long, they pushed through the red doors and began their excursion. Keldo headed to the big intersection and headed east. At the end of the hallway, they found a room that was a barracks, once upon a time. Theren discovered many hundreds of coins mixed among the debris. Next, they headed into a nearby room that contained more ghostly apparitions, apparently reviewing marching orders for that day. Four skeletons were in the room, clothed in the armor of the old empire. The party decided not to disturb the remains. North of this area they discovered stairs leading down, apparently to another level, and several stone pillars with a metal plate at their base. After some experimentation, the party decided not to touch the metal plates at all. They headed across the big hallway to see what they might find.

Across the hall, they discovered more broken furniture and debris. This foray into the dungeon was surprisingly quiet compared to their last few visits. Hardly any sounds to speak of.

A hallway led off from their room, which they followed around a bend, where they found two dead dwarves who had “returned to the stone,” as they say (because in this setting, dwarves are born from stone and return to it once dead). Their armor and weapons were still serviceable, so Theren and Keldo broke taboo and shattered an arm of the deceased dwarf to recover the chainmail.

Katie had an uncanny ability to detect evil, which she had been utilizing up until this point. In the room with the dwarves, she detected evil, but couldn’t tell where it was coming from. The party scouted around, finding a narrow hallway to the east, and rediscovering the circular room that contained the demon masks. Keldo was relieved to find a loop in his map. At the northern end of the hallway, the party found two doors, one of which was made of iron, and it was locked. Patrice was unable to pick the lock, and the group wasn’t confident in their ability to bash it open, certainly not without making a lot of noise. Instead, they decided to open the door at the other end of the hallway, which proved to be their undoing.

Theren kicked open the door, surprising six black skeletons. The group had a full round of surprise attacks, but Theren missed his first attack, and Katie dealt very low damage.

At this point, the group was extremely concerned and fearful. They attempted to plan the optimal strategy that involved forming a front line of fighters and snipers, but they found little agreement. The new players disagreed with the existing players about what to do, ultimately going along with the plan, but unhappily.

Theren rolled low initiative for the first round of combat and had no chance of escaping the room full of skeletons. He was the first to die.

The party began to retreat, but the skeletons move just as quickly. Theren’s dog Luna tried to lead the skeletons away, but they quickly caught and slaughtered her. The rest of the party made it as far as the dungeon entrance before they were surrounded and summarily executed. Patrice was the second to fall, followed by Keldo, and finally Katie.

I took the character sheets of the dead characters, and also Keldo's map. I explained that he doesn’t have the map anymore, and his only chance of recovery is to make it back into the dungeon and get it. However, time passes in real-time between sessions, which means at least a week will pass before he gets the chance.

Behind the Screen

I didn’t roll a single random encounter during this entire session, which was very surprising. This resulted in a very empty-feeling dungeon where not much happened. This is probably for the best, because the players didn’t bring any henchmen, hoping to link up with Fearsome Fanga and Gormok, but they never showed up. It should be noted that the players were so eager to get into the dungeon, they neglected to get any henchmen, which was a fatal mistake. They were able to find one in Muntberg, but he hated orcs. Despite the offer of a small pay raise, he was unwilling to cooperate with anyone who works with orcs, and so angrily declined the offer. Our new player, Katie, wondered if we should try to get more help, but being her first time, didn’t press the issue.

The players had survived the first few runs through the dungeon thanks to luck and the fact that I was missing key stat blocks for many of the creatures they encountered. I have since fixed that problem. Furthermore, they teamed up with a bunch of orcs to defeat an overwhelming force of black skeletons. This may have led the players to believe they were more powerful than they truly were, despite the fact that four of the six orcs were killed in the melee.

Keldo and Theren's players immediately started rolling new characters; this system has a very strict 3d6 down the line stat generation, which is brutal, but it’s possible to subtract 2 from a stat to add 1 to another. Furthermore, players are allowed to roll 5 sets of stats and choose their best 2, with the rest being given to the GM for future hirelings. They got some decent rolls, and now that we had time to properly review all of the character classes, they were able to make more informed decisions.

This was my first total party kill in a decade of playing D&D, and it felt terrible. After many conversations with the players since then, this was one of the most valuable learning experiences they could have had; it has changed how they think about and plan for the game. As you'll see in later play reports, player death is extremely rare.

The journey continues in part 4.