| mlnunn | 31 Aug 2009 3:48 p.m. PST |
I need to end a D&D campaign. Easy you might say, but I can't just drop in an Epic level dragon and eat them. I would have to hear about that for a long, long time. I need to take them out in a fair fight, sadly fair fights seem to always go the PC's way. So my question is what CR 9 or 10 monsters or group of monsters could I toss at them that woould be the most lethal with out being overtly obvious? Any party killing suggestions? |
| Farstar | 31 Aug 2009 3:54 p.m. PST |
Kobolds with access to Grimtooth's Traps. |
 Saber6   | 31 Aug 2009 3:55 p.m. PST |
ditto Beholders (note PLURAL) are nice too |
| Coyotepunc and Hatshepsuut | 31 Aug 2009 3:59 p.m. PST |
Let them become the lords of the land. They killed all the monsters, now they can spend their time managing the economy and eating peeled grapes. That way, no one has to die, but there are no adventures left for thwm to go on. And if you guys want to pull it off the shelf a few years down the road, then the Beholder Invasion Fleet could touch down in their land… |
| Henrix | 31 Aug 2009 4:05 p.m. PST |
Talk to the players and try to come to a better closure – a planned TPK is rather cheap, and not very memorable. |
| Saber6 | 31 Aug 2009 4:07 p.m. PST |
of course one problem with TPK solutions is that the players may not want to play in YOUR campaign again |
 Doctor X | 31 Aug 2009 4:07 p.m. PST |
Mind flayers and their minions. |
| Saber6 | 31 Aug 2009 4:11 p.m. PST |
NICE! I really like that one! |
| mlnunn | 31 Aug 2009 4:13 p.m. PST |
of course one problem with TPK solutions is that the players may not want to play in YOUR campaign again
I should have mentioned a couple of these guys are power gaming munchkins who will think getting wacked is cool and be ready to roll up new killing machines and start again next week. The rest of the group are so tired of this particular campaign and the power gaming direction it went they will breath a sigh of relief.
The direction it went was my fault, I gave in one time too many for a whiney request and doom followed. Thanks for all your help every answer makes me think a little more… |
| Cyrus the Great | 31 Aug 2009 4:30 p.m. PST |
Mind flayers and their minions.
I'll remember this comment! 
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| Thomas Whitten | 31 Aug 2009 4:30 p.m. PST |
Get them to kill themselves with traps. The easy way would be tossing them into the "Tomb of Horrors." It is the classic foil for power gamers. You will have some great fun. Just don't tell them they are in the Tomb of Horrors. |
| Who asked this joker | 31 Aug 2009 4:38 p.m. PST |
Let them write the ending. How do they want to die/be remembered/live to the end of their days. |
| Wyatt the Odd | 31 Aug 2009 4:51 p.m. PST |
We ended a 4-year-long campaign at 12-13th level by going up against the archfiend that had been behind the scenes of the campaign. While Harry, our DM, had careful notes about his world and the backstory, you can bring things to a triumphant conclusion by having the characters discover some great evil and clues to its whereabouts over the course of a few more adventures. Have the gods provide omens, kings offer their daughters' hands in marriage, etc. to clue them in that this IS THE BIG ONE. Then, have them go up against the baddy. Some may die, but the surviving characters will have Saved the World™ and after that, where else can they go? The cleric/paladin founds his own religious order, the fighter becomes king through marriage after his betrothed's father is killed by the baddy's henchmen, the mage is invited to study/teach at a prestigious school of magic, etc. It gives the players a sense of accomplishment as well as conclusion. Wyatt |
| syr8766 | 31 Aug 2009 5:40 p.m. PST |
All of the aforementioned suggestions are good. If you're still bent on killing them off, check out the 'Drowned' monster. Unless someone has a bunch of nautical spells prepared in advanced, it's going to be over pretty quick. |
 gamertom | 31 Aug 2009 5:41 p.m. PST |
If you weren't the guy who asked about it, I'd tell you to have them meet a powerful Druid with a flying rhino as an animal companion and have the rhino fall on them. |
| Moonbeast | 31 Aug 2009 5:44 p.m. PST |
As has been suggested, if you go the TPK route and use psionics, mind flayers and their minions. Dark Dwarves (duregar?) would be good…or Drow…lots of either as cannon fodder for the tentacled one could do boatloads of damage in the dark of night. An enslaved Githyanki strike team popping in from the astral plane would work also. The Lords of Madness book (assuming you have access to it) is positively brutal, use it.:) If you want generic, I hear that demons work fairly well…especially the abyssal assassins, Babu.;) |
| kokigami | 31 Aug 2009 5:53 p.m. PST |
Would they have heard of the head of vecna?
Getting them to kill each other is probably the coolest way to go. Especially the power gamers. If you can get them greedy, you might be able to reset the game to a lower power level. Otherwise, time space slip em into Tekumel. Let them run afoul of the OAL. |
| syr8766 | 31 Aug 2009 5:59 p.m. PST |
Actually, introducing a Deck of Many Things or the equivalent (the kind of artifact that potentially kills everyone dramatically) would be a great way to kill folk off… |
| Spectacle | 31 Aug 2009 6:03 p.m. PST |
Just place them in a dungeon they can't escape from, and keep throwing standard encounters at them. Sure, every individual fight is "fair", but if you don't let them rest they will be going down eventually. |
 Parzival | 31 Aug 2009 7:09 p.m. PST |
Make the PCs deities. Living forever is the equivalent of dying. |
| the Gorb | 31 Aug 2009 7:30 p.m. PST |
Nuke them from orbit. It's the only way. Actually, Doppelgangers can do it quite effectively, especially if they (or the first person they take out) has a magic item which prevents mind reading. Regards, the Gorb |
| Syrinx0 | 31 Aug 2009 7:45 p.m. PST |
Add a few dragons with strong npc support and seed revolt amongst the disgruntled players to make sure the power gamers don't back down. Worked for my DM. Then again, I am predictable in certain situations and make a good catalyst. |
| Neotacha | 31 Aug 2009 8:41 p.m. PST |
Or, of course, since everyone (or the majority, anyway) appears to be tired of the campaign, just stop. Why does there have to be closure, anyway? Leave the party suspended between adventures, have everyone roll up baby characters and start fresh. Only this time, don't give in to the whiners. |
| mweaver | 31 Aug 2009 8:44 p.m. PST |
You could use the old Mirror of Opposition trick (it produces exact duplicates of the PCs, who immediately try to kill their originals). Or, to be extra sure, try this trick: the PCs hit a pit trap/trick floor/whatever, and fall. As they fall, they go past a Mirror of Opposition on the wall of the pit, which duplicates them. The hostile clones also fall. On the spot where the PCs land, some nice spikes; on the spot where the clones land, some soft mattresses… Have the players each run someone else's clone; that way they can all kill each other. |
| Liberators | 31 Aug 2009 9:34 p.m. PST |
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| richarDISNEY | 01 Sep 2009 7:29 a.m. PST |
Not one, but TWO hydras! That would be fun fer a CR9 challenge… 
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| Hexxenhammer | 01 Sep 2009 7:51 a.m. PST |
Let's see…one DM accidently TPK'd our party of about 8th level with orc barbarians riding dire wolves. The wolf trip attacks make it impossible to get full attacks because we had to keep standing up. Another did it with a mind flayer with a few psion levels as suggested above. None of us could make our Will saves. We stood around drooling as it ate our brains one by one… I like the doppleganger idea too. Get one of the PCs to go along with the idea that their character has been secretly replaced with a doppleganger. Give them a character sheet with all the doppleganger's stats (may need class levels, I suggest rogue with lots of ranks in "Use Magic Item" so they can impersonate being a wizard or cleric). Then have them lead the rest of the party into a trap. I actually used this one. It wasn't supposed to be a TPK… |
| Tom Reed | 01 Sep 2009 8:24 a.m. PST |
We had the same thing happen in a campaign. The players got too powerful and it just was not challenging for them anymore. We came to the mutual decision to end the campaign. We moved it forward in time several years, figuring out what each PC would have done to end their repective careers. In the new campaign the players characters could (if they wanted) be the heirs/children of their old PCs, or create entirely new characters. |
| Space Monkey | 01 Sep 2009 9:59 a.m. PST |
I'd go for something like the end of Beneath The Planet Of The Apes… have them pursued into the underground lair of a tribe of mutant gnomes who worship the creation of their ancient gnome founders… a huge (nuclear?) doomsday weapon.
Have the weapon set off during an enormous battle… destroy them, their stuff, the entire planet… no chance of later revival (not that it kept the movie series from going on and on…). |
| Happy Little Trees | 01 Sep 2009 12:06 p.m. PST |
Whah? oh, man you wouldn't believe the dream I just had. Oh yeah? Me too. ( Worked for DALLAS ) |
| UltraOrk | 01 Sep 2009 12:17 p.m. PST |
I've always found the most deadly monster is another adventuring party with a similar make up to the PCs. |
| Hexxenhammer | 01 Sep 2009 12:19 p.m. PST |
How could I forget about dinosaurs? A T-Rex or two could just eat them. Their grapple and swallow whole attacks are just about unbeatable at that level. I did have a player (barbarian) power attack the inside of a T-Rex once. He managed to cut himself out and kill it from inside all at once. |
| CeruLucifus | 01 Sep 2009 3:00 p.m. PST |
Jeez, why do you have to kill everybody? Just say you're tired of running the campaign and want to do something else. This leaves several options: 1) Another player could offer to take over DMing the campaign; whether that goes stale and dies or takes root and grows, it's now out of your hands. 2) If the players really really enjoy you running and your world and you would be willing to keep running with a different group of characters, use the "start up with the grandkids" option suggested by Tom Reed above. 3) The campaign goes into limbo. You turn your gaming attentions to other activities. In the future, if you and everyone else gets nostalgic, you could always dust everything off again and run a big Labor Day Weekend game or whatever. Or not. One good way to do this, BTW, is to change rulesets. My GM has done this over and over. Occasionally the characters can port over but usually the new system is too different, so everyone starts new. |
| mlnunn | 01 Sep 2009 3:38 p.m. PST |
Jeez, why do you have to kill everybody? Good question and one that I think deserves an answer. We have dropped a couple of good campaigns over these same two players over the last few years. They later brag about the games they ended with there antics. As I said ealier they are power gaming munchkins. Taking them out within the rules in a fair fight seems like a better option than just another campaign that fades away. I am far beyond try to teach them a lesson, this is for me. I may be wrong but expect to have guite a sense of acomplishment if I pull this off. As a side note, I have been gaming with these same guys since 1991… 18 years and they have not changed a bit. |
| Thomas Whitten | 02 Sep 2009 10:54 a.m. PST |
I'm not sure what the 'Drowned' monster is, but that makes me think of the Elemental Plane of Water. ( link ) Provide them with a portal to the plane, a map to some treasure, and a warning that the portal can only be re-entered with that treasure. Most power gamers I know will enter the portal without being prepared and end up drowning. If they are smart enough to prepare themselves for operating underwater, odds are they will not train themselves for fighting underwater. Thus any CR 9 or 10 monsters would get additional bonuses for fighting the party in an environment the party is not suited for (whether the party can breath or not.) |
| mlnunn | 06 Sep 2009 6:29 p.m. PST |
Well I unleashed on the group, using many of the suggestions from here. I tried my best to kill them all. After a very hard fought fight one PC lay dead, No surprise it was not a power gamer. I realized about half way into the fight that eveyone was having a lot of fun. I got a few comments after the fight about what a challenge it was and how great the set up was. I have a new plan. I am gong to continue trying to kill the party, from now on in the name of fun rather than in frustration. Thanks for all your help. |
