I ran the opening adventure in the Mortuary ("Grave Escape") for my players yesterday. There are (5) characters. My goal was to get a TPK (or at least one of them dead) so that they could experience the glitch character mechanic. Unfortunately, none of them died.
Attempt #1 to kill the characters: via combat. (Result: FAIL)
The first encounter (in area M2) was w/ the Herald of Dust and the Flesh golem. Those 2 creatures knocked most of the party out, including the fighter several times. But the problem was (1) the party has a cleric AND a bard so they healed constantly. I could never keep the characters down and dead. They kept popping back up like whack-a-moles. And (2) the cleric has heavy armor and shield so they had AC 18 or whatever. I fudged the dice a little to hit her, but I couldn't justify miraculously hitting her every time.
When I saw that the party was being beaten up, but would probably win, I improvised that the skeletons and poltergeist from area M3 rushed in to attack them. (The party had already met them and escaped before a fight could break out). This probably should have turned the tide in the bad guys' favor, but the cleric Turned Undead and that fully neutralized all of the reinforcements.
The party eventually won the battle, but they used all their long rest abilities and pretty much all their spell slots.
Attempt #2 to kill the characters: via the Crematorium. (Result: FAIL)
After they won that battle, I thought 'OK, I'll get them in the Crematorium' (area M5). But again, that failed. The characters immediately figured out how the levels worked. (It's not difficult and they aren't dumb). So they sent Mage hands and other clever ruses to distract the zombie on the far end of the tunnel and flip the lever to safely open the doors. They avoided incineration.
So.... What do I do?
I need the players to die. LOL. So I can show them the glitch mechanic. They still have the 2nd half of the mortuary to explore, so there's time to kill them there. The options I'm considering are:
Dramatically increase the CR of the remaining battles. Feels cheap to do, but...?
Make a campaign-long House Rule where if you hit 0 hp you die, which forces a glitch respawn. I like this rule in the spirit of the campaign theme, but I'm eliminating a major game mechanic (death saves) from the rules. I can make up an in-game reason for this (related to the glitch or maybe the demi-lich in the Mortuary curses them....).
Thoughts? Ideas? Has anybody else run into this problem? For those playing this campaign, how often do your characters die? My fear is that the rest of the campaign won't legitimately threaten the PC's enough for them to enjoy the glitch mechanic.
What about taking some inspiration from the video game that suggested the glitch mechanic? Planescape: Torment had several non-standard game overs, where death was inevitable even for your immortal player character. The moments that have stuck with me are, reanimating a petrified wizard who was in the midst of speaking the deplorable word a la C. S. Lewis; pissing off a necromancer who would love to do things with your corpse before it has the chance to reanimate; needing something that was on the other side of a glyph of warding and having no other way but through; voiding a curse that left the victim free to disintegrate you... I'm sure the list goes on, though it's been a long time since my last play-through.
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I ran the opening adventure in the Mortuary ("Grave Escape") for my players yesterday. There are (5) characters. My goal was to get a TPK (or at least one of them dead) so that they could experience the glitch character mechanic. Unfortunately, none of them died.
Attempt #1 to kill the characters: via combat. (Result: FAIL)
The first encounter (in area M2) was w/ the Herald of Dust and the Flesh golem. Those 2 creatures knocked most of the party out, including the fighter several times. But the problem was (1) the party has a cleric AND a bard so they healed constantly. I could never keep the characters down and dead. They kept popping back up like whack-a-moles. And (2) the cleric has heavy armor and shield so they had AC 18 or whatever. I fudged the dice a little to hit her, but I couldn't justify miraculously hitting her every time.
When I saw that the party was being beaten up, but would probably win, I improvised that the skeletons and poltergeist from area M3 rushed in to attack them. (The party had already met them and escaped before a fight could break out). This probably should have turned the tide in the bad guys' favor, but the cleric Turned Undead and that fully neutralized all of the reinforcements.
The party eventually won the battle, but they used all their long rest abilities and pretty much all their spell slots.
Attempt #2 to kill the characters: via the Crematorium. (Result: FAIL)
After they won that battle, I thought 'OK, I'll get them in the Crematorium' (area M5). But again, that failed. The characters immediately figured out how the levels worked. (It's not difficult and they aren't dumb). So they sent Mage hands and other clever ruses to distract the zombie on the far end of the tunnel and flip the lever to safely open the doors. They avoided incineration.
So.... What do I do?
I need the players to die. LOL. So I can show them the glitch mechanic. They still have the 2nd half of the mortuary to explore, so there's time to kill them there. The options I'm considering are:
Thoughts? Ideas? Has anybody else run into this problem? For those playing this campaign, how often do your characters die? My fear is that the rest of the campaign won't legitimately threaten the PC's enough for them to enjoy the glitch mechanic.
What about taking some inspiration from the video game that suggested the glitch mechanic? Planescape: Torment had several non-standard game overs, where death was inevitable even for your immortal player character. The moments that have stuck with me are, reanimating a petrified wizard who was in the midst of speaking the deplorable word a la C. S. Lewis; pissing off a necromancer who would love to do things with your corpse before it has the chance to reanimate; needing something that was on the other side of a glyph of warding and having no other way but through; voiding a curse that left the victim free to disintegrate you... I'm sure the list goes on, though it's been a long time since my last play-through.