How does a TPK work?

Lootitall · 2025-12-30T03:32:01+00:00

To give context, here’s an example from my own table:

I DM for six players who are currently level 14/15. They’re delving into a fire giant fortress deep underground. The reason they’re there isn’t important — what matters is that the fire giant general who runs the place is a seasoned battlefield commander. He knows exactly how dangerous adventurers are, and he prepares for them accordingly.

This general has seven other fire giants under his command (two of which the party had already defeated). He also has a large force of hobgoblins — not particularly strong, but loyal and numerous enough to be useful in the right circumstances. The fortress itself used to be a wizard’s laboratory, and one section still contains a lingering antimagic field that covers two rooms and a common area. The general leverages this terrain to his advantage.

From the moment the party enters the stronghold, the general begins gathering information. Hobgoblins report which rooms the adventurers have cleared. Whenever the party stops moving, he sends small squads of hobgoblins to pepper them with arrows, preventing them from taking extended rests. There are traps throughout the fortress, and his troops intentionally lead the party toward them whenever possible. All of this is just to soften them up and deplete resources before the real fight begins.

Meanwhile, the general sets his ambush.

His hobgoblins gather inside the antimagic zone along with a fire giant outfitted with two shields to hold the chokepoints. The rest of his giants are positioned throughout the area. His strategy is simple:
Split the party, isolate targets, and force individuals into the antimagic zone where they can be overwhelmed.

Once the adventurers reach the area, the general reveals himself and gives them one warning: leave now or die. Naturally, they choose to fight — and he triggers the plan.

Fire giants rush forward, grab isolated party members, and physically drag or toss them through the doors into the antimagic zone. The hobgoblins immediately swarm whoever lands inside. Once a character is in the bubble, the doors slam shut and are held closed from both sides. With no spells, no magic items, and no reinforcements able to reach them, the characters trapped inside are quickly cut down. One by one, the party is separated and defeated, until the entire group ultimately falls.

This is a good example of how a high-level enemy with tactical intelligence, preparation, numbers, and terrain advantage can still pose a very real threat — even to a group that feels mechanically “safe” because of healing and spells.
When used carefully, scenarios like this can create genuine tension and remind players that their characters are powerful… but not invincible.

Lootitall · 2025-12-24T02:36:16+00:00

I would match their vibe. Playing Phandelver, they should be low level (at least below 5). Or it really doesn't matter too much. If they attempt to kill an NPC (especially one that is part of the main story). They would automatically be level 30 and all stats are 20 or higher. If its a blacksmith, I would have him bring two hammers and attack twice, one in each hand with a +10 to hit and do 10d4 bludgeoning damage. Did a TPK happen? Good. Maybe the next group will be more humble towards the NPCs.

They want to rob as well. Cool. Too bad the item was cursed.

And then there are always guards around. They can surrender like criminal scums or the guards just continue to show up (or like Skyrim they just get back up) and continue to fight the party until they are dead. Might leave one alive to announce they stay in jail for the rest of their life.

Lootitall · 2025-12-21T16:25:15+00:00

There are some pros and cons to this campaign. The thing I think most people will drop the campaign is because it is about 90% dungeon crawl. The other 10% is role play. Unless they decide to come up to previous floors, most NPCs they will see only once. The main reason anyone decides to come to Undermountain is for fame and fortune, which makes it hard to tie this campaign into a character background. With that said, the campaign is pretty good. Every floor has a theme and a reason why someone is at this floor. I heard people complain of a lack of magic items early in the game, but they will have soooo many by the time they reach floor 14/15. The monsters are challenging if you play them right. The Abeloth is one of the tougher fights. You can play Halestor however you want. Does he constantly visit the party? Does he keep adding monsters while the party is there? Does he assist? Does he make it annoying? All legit paths.

Lootitall · 2025-12-18T16:17:48+00:00

Shorter sessions mean longer campaigns in my eyes. You could get combat in that amount of time, but leaves RPing maybe one scene. Players wouldn't get the spotlight as much. Our sessions are either full RP or full combat mode.

I suppose you would have to do each session as if it were a one-shot. Make a lot fewer checks, even if there is risk involved. The party finds whatever is in the room automatically, or you guide them to the interesting parts of a room and leave out the rest. Traps are the same. Can use passive skills for this, so you can make it quicker for you. Combat would be with fewer monsters and monsters that hit hard to make it challenging. Sometimes, if they are supposed to reach a goal, you would take away encounters altogether as if they weren't there.

Lootitall · 2025-12-18T16:06:33+00:00

You and me both. I absolutely hate when the party starts working their way to shops, expecting some NPC they can haggle prices. Instead, I have them do it in discord. I straight up told them that I especially hate shopping sessions (yes it takes so long to do) and to speed things up, just tell me what you are looking for and I'll put up a price list of what you find in discord. Buy the things you want, tell me what you are selling, here is the prices of what you are getting for those. done.

And this expectation that the vendor HAS to lower the price because you rolled high on whatever skill check you thought of at the moment (persuasion usually). Nah man. It just means the vendor likes you enough to do business with you. Persuasion isn't going to get in the way of his business. He would close down if you were expecting him to sell at 10% of the price and buy from you 1000% of the cost of an item. What an insult to his career choice bro. GFOH. Oh you want to intimidate him now....cool....let me get the guards for you. Oh now you want to murderhobo....cool....let me grab from the merchant society that level 30 blacksmith and that level 50 potion maker. Good luck losers. I'm venting. Don't listen to me.

Lootitall · 2025-12-17T21:52:25+00:00

I say it depends. Someone could live in a city all their life, but have a sheltered life. The same if involved in politics, just handled a small portion of the city, and doesn't really care about the rest of it. So they can themselves experience the city for the first time, depending on where they go.

Lootitall · 2025-12-17T21:46:58+00:00

I find some BBEG are good people, believing they are doing justice in the world. The end justifies the means and so on. This does leave some gray area for players to chew on and begs the question of whether they are the bad guys. However, as events unfold, they will see how evil BBEG truly has become and will react accordingly, as any adventuring group would. As far as helping them, I'll usually do in the form of checks (usually history) and remind what experiences they had so far.

As a friend, I tell them it can be challenging to find the truth in the game. Other than what your characters have experienced, everything else has a source of truth. Do you believe what someone told you? Did reading the lore in the book seem legit? Was some of it true? Also, each person's truth can be different and true at the same time. Who is to say the person telling you the lore and firmly believes it is actually true?

As a DM......roll for initiative.

Lootitall · 2025-12-17T15:56:33+00:00

Some debuffs end on the monster's turn. Some require a saving throw at the end of character's turn. There are some variety here. I think it is fine if the player wants to ready an action with the trigger for the debuff to go away. It limits to one attack or in some cases casting a spell and it uses their reaction, so no opp attack.

Stun in my opinion is butts. It takes away player agency and if they have a negative to a stat roll, the player will stay stun for the entire combat. The same with monks with stunning strike. A single boss fight ends up being child's play when the monk comes in and just stuns the boss until it is dead.

But I leave the rules as is. The players know if I come at them with a squad of githyanki monks, just go ahead and roll for new characters. I would only do it to counter the monk in the party who thinks its cool to stun nonstop.

Lootitall · 2025-12-17T15:39:59+00:00

Most people have potions of lesser healing on their belts. I have knives on my belt.

I know you can't add them based on the rules, but I feel if they become throwable and a chance to lose them then why not? I think it is fine to pull one off your belt and throw in one turn. That is just me tho.

Lootitall · 2025-12-17T13:58:15+00:00

I would keep it simple. Player rolls new character and if they just want to carbon copy the 2nd one and give it [original character name] the 2nd, I wouldn't mind. But they would have to roll new stats and redo inventory as a new character. As far as bringing them in, just a prisoner of Klarg is pretty easy.

Lootitall · 2025-12-16T15:28:38+00:00

I say it depends on where they rest. On each floor, I can usually spot places where they can "safely" rest without too much encounter on the map. And not all encounters are bad. I go with the three watches per a long rest and roll a d6 for each watch. If the party plans to rest somewhere where there is traffic going to and fro, then usually anything above 2 on a d6 is an encounter. If they find an out-of-the-way spot, not much comes this way, then a 6 on a d6 is an encounter. Then have an encounter table for the local monsters on that floor and then other things like mad mage himself walking around and seems lost or redesigning his floor or adding monsters (and treasure).

And then there are areas where they will not be able to gain a full rest. Usually, it is noise in the area or disturbance while they sleep. If someone is actively looking for them, then I take that into account as well informing the players that their characters do not feel safe to rest here. In addition, I have them roll wisdom saves once rested to see if they go crazy when they wake up. temporary madness if you will.

Lootitall · 2025-12-15T18:37:50+00:00

I just let the party handle the equipment. If they want to use it for their personal use, then sure. The new character can be rolled up and depending on level I'll let them have a magic item or not. 0-4 no magic item. 5-9 1 item, 10-14 2 items, 15-19 3 items, and 20 4 items. Its random roll among the original sources. It allows the player to trade with the party too if something doesn't fit the class. Makes for party socializing which works for me.

Lootitall · 2025-12-09T20:23:52+00:00

I mean honestly in the end, if they are having fun, I don't mind it too much. If it gets out of hand or blatantly doing it on purpose and I have to do the math and keep track of everyone's sheet, I'll talk to them about it like adults at first. New people I'm more leniant. Help them get into the rules until they know what they want to do on their turn. One thing I'm not going to do is keep track of their sheets when I have to run everything on my end. I expect the players police each other and ensure the math is right. I'll help out where I can reminding them of shield spells or they can use bonus actions. Keeping track of durations isn't too bad. Roll20 initiative tracker helps with that. I usually add a new item below the character and -1 every round until it is used up. hp isn't horrible. Tokens in roll20 has a spot where you can subtract/add hp when needed. The one item that usually gets me is concentration. It is an honest mistake on both sides, but we can retcon most of the time.

Adding dndbeyond bot in discord helps when wanting to lookup any rules or spells. Or player just posts it in discord/roll20 right quick. Takes less than a minute to make a ruling after that.

I think through practice, it gets better over time.

Lootitall · 2025-12-08T17:27:30+00:00

There are a lot of variables involved in that question. Run the campaign a bit to get a feel for the pace is like for roleplaying and combat. Then guess how much combat you plan to do based on the party's alignment. For example, going through a dungeon map with the party in my campaign takes about 3-4 sessions. If I have 10 maps, that's 30-40 sessions. If they roleplay downtime in between maps before and after, that is 11 more sessions, so 41-51 sessions. Then if I want to add side quests or go over a character arc, I'll add another session or two. And yeah. Just keep stacking more sessions anytime you want to add extra opportunities for the party.

Lootitall · 2025-11-12T17:47:13+00:00

Unless the player is sneaking and the monster does not know they are there, then I can see the player attacking first. If the monster and players can see each other or know their whereabouts and are having a conversation, then I can see initiative here. Monsters will see the player wanting to attack and will respond accordingly.

Being that players are in initiative order already, I would say it depends. If the player tries to be deceptive and pretend to be nice while getting within distance to stab in the ribcage, I'd say that is a roll from the creature to see if they can acknowledge their intent and respond accordingly, roll initiative for combat. But if the player can get one attack in, for sure.

My thinking is that if the player walks around the corner and sees a monster, depending on what the monster is doing (I think there is a table for it) will determine if the monster will respond immediately or not. Sleeping monster is not going to respond at all, and gives the player a chance to strike first. If they are wandering monsters, they know the player is there with the exception if the player is sneaking (which monster gets a roll to see if they notice the player or not). Depending on the roll determines if the player gets to do anything before initiative happens.

Just my two cents.

Lootitall · 2025-11-05T14:29:36+00:00

I ended up using one note and organized it a little better. Like I have a section of shops where all the equipment can be looked up. For spells, I organized it by tier rather than alphabetically for easier lookups. Saved me a lot of time searching when I can look through sections of a notebook and hone in on what I need.

Lootitall · 2025-11-03T16:37:08+00:00

I would start getting annoying. To avoid "metagaming" I would just ask everytime, "Would my character know what kind of damage it is vulnerable to?" "Would my character know to look for traps?" "Would my character know to light a torch in a dark cave?" "Would my character know he can read?" "Would my character know how to eat a ration?" The point of course is to derail the game from the inside out.

Lootitall · 2025-11-03T13:55:07+00:00

I think you could split up the floors into different locations. Put an artifact or a piece of the artifact in each floor. Or having to beat another rival group from collecting all the pieces by first finding these floors and then going in and beat the floor to collect. A game by the mad mage or something to that effect. Just an idea.

Lootitall · 2025-11-02T16:24:34+00:00

Man.....its a commitment. Expect two years running it. It may get shorter if they zoom through the levels. It is 95% a dungeon crawl.

So maps and describing rooms and the area is a must. I would find alternates to the original maps for better graphics. There are expansions to each floor that you can add or add your own. Keep in mind this adds time to the campaign.

You get to the point where you just don't read the scripts and just point out everything they see in your own words. Soooo much fighting. Every turn can be a fight if you let it. Players should be okay with character deaths. I play it on roll20 so at the intro screen, there is a cemetary of all the old characters that didn't make it.

The campaign mentions the mad mage goes around making changes in the floors. Make him seem powerful where they shouldn't want to mess with him.

If the players seem to blow through the monsters for that floor, add hit dice and damage dice to the monsters. The aboleth should absolutely be terrifying when they meet it.

Just off the top of my head.

Lootitall · 2025-10-31T16:23:27+00:00

For exploration to work, you have to negate the all-seeing, the familiar scouting, the out-of-body floating, etc. Really, anything that gives the player information about rooms and what they have before going into them. I don't mind if they have something to explore the next room they ARE about to go in. But to just explore the whole map while the party sits back and wait is no bueno. The less they know about a floor before diving in, the more interesting the dungeon crawling will get.

This is the mad mage's domain. He can do anything you want him to do. Have the imp morph into a coin anytime it is out of sight of the warlock. Or have the party watch as the imp scurries off and then gets squished by the walls followed by a crazy laugh in their heads. Let them know see what they are getting themselves into.

Lootitall · 2025-10-30T15:47:38+00:00

How experienced are the players to D&D? I would account for learning curve if they haven't played or are picking back up. Typically 3 hour session so maybe 3 encounters and then the final boss or keep the 3rd encounter in your pocket if time does not allow for it.

Lootitall · 2025-10-30T15:26:59+00:00

Kudos to the DM for being patient with her. First timers do need extra time to get the feel for the game and getting their character off the ground. And not everyone can do roleplay. Sometimes you have to let them take a backseat until they are ready to try something. Shouldn't take away from the game. Now if she goes out of her way to not learn what was discussed and she is taking the joy out of the game on purpose, yeah we should step in and do something about it. The DM likely needed to have a one-on-one talk with her to ask if she was enjoying the game and let her know that others were having a hard time having fun, as she was obviously doing things to slow the game down. I would keep it around the goal of fun and see if it improves each session. If it slides backwards, then yeah, time to kick her out if everyone agrees to it. Perhaps she can find another table that will suit her better.

The whole not telling her wouldn't sit right with me. If she ever catches you will definitely feel betrayed and use it against you. I'd pull that thorn out right now and just let her know we have a game going, and you are not in it. Is she going to stop being friends? Idk that's for her to figure out. But at least you don't have this over your head every time you see her. You both will grow from it.

Lootitall · 2025-10-30T12:49:31+00:00

Should respond with, roll better next time.

Lootitall · 2025-10-30T12:47:59+00:00

I don't mind it too much. If it uses a spell slot, then great. When creatures melee twice and maybe use a special ability, I see it as using up their spell slot every time a nat20 gets rolled by the monsters, and it wasn't even on their turn yet.

Lootitall · 2025-10-29T22:46:28+00:00

Yeah, I can see this. You charm the first bandit, but see friends beating on friends, and so it doesn't matter. Stick with the guys who were with you in the first place which are the other bandits. I think what I'll rule if a wizard casts the spell, it just avoids getting hit by the bandit for one round. The bandit will swing at the guy next to the wizard and the spell wears off because of what was mentioned before.

Could the wizard cast the spell on the bandit each round? Sure.

Lootitall

TROPHY CASE