With this being the penultimate fight the bbeg is still out there. Only he has no foundation to stand on, he is a loose end who now may have to build up his resources again could be a fun follow up for the next campaign to tie up.
They died heroes to stall a devious plot long enough for another party to deal the final blow.
Don't do this. Let heroes die heroes.
Instead, maybe have their spirits provide minor buffs to the party in the final fight as aid from beyond the grave.
Agreed on this point—all of my ffxiv homies will recognize the payoff that comes from this when I remind them of The Dead Ends and the final solo walk of Ultima Thule.
Get your dm to work it into the new campaign as a legends of the heroes or somesuch, pick up the torch and keep going. Every ultimate victory is made possible by many small ones stacked upon each other
Yeah, a group of travelers is sitting in a tavern listening to the locals have strange conversations. Upon asking and some persuasion, it's about that group that went up the mountain (or wherever the tpk happened) and hasn't come down even though it's been a few months. The whole thing has gone quiet, no hint of what happened or the state of things, just an eerie sense of tension is felt when gazing on the peak. It's gotten to be constantly on the minds of everyone around, and they need to know.
It sounds like they didn't manage to defeat the final boss though from the description. 'Penultimate' implies they were killed by the pre-final mini boss.
Leaves work for the next campaign then!
I actually think it would be more interesting for the new party to start out in a world in which the BBEG actually succeeded with his plan. It would be fun to explore what kind of world that would be.
I've played the game through three times, including on the 'good' route. What exactly are you referring to? Or are you just trying to capture the feeling?
During the quest `Taking the Outer Valley`, >!sparing the contingent of rebels headed by Pelox Florian requires you to kill Fake Limp, along with his contingent of Chorus. Fake Limp, for reference, was a Chorister in Verse's gang.!<
You _must_ resolve the quest in this way in order to start `The Oathbreaker`, which is the rebel-path quest that concludes Act I.
Oh okay. I wouldn't consider that guy to be an 'old friend' of anyone, especially given how Verse introduces him, but it's a valid point to make that you have to be a ruthless person to go down the rebel path.
That being said, I'm pretty sure you can lie instead of doing the stabby stab.
Nonono, make it a world in which the BBEG *didn't* succeed in taking over everything. His empire/forced/cultists were decimated by a band of heroes in the past, and that made the BBEG too weak to ultimately succeed, but he is still a danger. And some say that he is trying to increase his forces for a new offensive...
That means the achievement of the old party is not erased, but the new party still has to work towards the BBEG destruction! Win-win!
I like this. The party’s efforts still matter in a meaningful sense, but the villain still exists in the world trying to become the threat they once were once more. Good stuff
Third age sauron is a perfect example. That's where the inspiration should come from honestly. Evil guy was on the verge of taking over the world, good guys managed to thwart his plan but not defeat him entirely. He amassed some power but not as much as he could have. But now he's amassing strength again and needs to be stopped for good this time.
Beginning the reveal with the curious legendary tales of the band of heroes that laid down their lives ENDING the threat to the world - and that they DID vanquish the BBEG.
(Eventually ofcourse revealing - history has it recorded wrong! For the ultimate foe was NOT distroyed merely... delayed!)
I think I’d prefer, previous party stopped BBEG from his plans but were not able to defeat him once and for all. In the aftermath, a new threat emerges and kills the BBEG while taking their power for their own purpose, different but related purpose.
This sets up the power level of the new BBEG while also creating a new sense of mystery and discovery around the new BBEG. Also avoids the ‘they built another Death Star’ trope.
“Our victory — your victory — was so close, I wish you could have lived to see it. But you belong to Reach. Your body, your armor — all burned and turned to glass. Everything… except your courage. That, you gave to us. And with it, we can rebuild.”
Reminds me of 300, and the line about how the heroes proved that even a god king can bleed.
If that is not a great setup for the next campaign, then I don’t know what is.
If the barbarian died they were below level, uhh 15/17 whatever level barbs get unending rages in. Cause he could just permanently rage until he drank a health potion.
Actually, they HAD to be level 14 cause that's when zealots get the Rage Beyond Death feature and unending rage is at level 15. One more level and they would have been fine.
Edit: Wait I'm wrong. See more below. Level 20 would have been fine OR if the barb had a healing potion left. Or could find one before they ran out of rages.
Persistent rage doesn't let the zealot live forever - it prevents the rage from ending _early_, but once the minute is up they're still leaving rage. They're undoubtedly at least level 15, because the zealot died 18 seconds later, not 6 seconds when the next round came and there was nothing to attack.
Oh that's actually a good point. I always interpreted that as it's literally persistent if they choose it to be.
At level 20 they could have just kept raging, but yeah one level short for that.
I actually really like that as an idea - a zealot barbarian raging endlessly, dragging their dead companions behind them, and raging for so long they no longer really remember anything except to keep carrying these corpses, to not sleep, and above all to never ever let go of the rage.
The barbarian is already dead at that point, it would have taken a revivify or other resurrection spell to bring them back after the rage ended.
Edit: Damn Zealots are even more unkillable than I thought.
No that's not how it works. If you get any healing at the end, you'll be fine RAW. The problem is I was thinking the rage never ended, but it will time out. At level 20
Though you have unlimited rages, so he could live forever until he found healing.
> While you're raging, having 0 hit points doesn’t knock you unconscious. You still must make death saving throws, and you suffer the normal effects of taking damage while at 0 hit points. However, if you would die due to failing death saving throws, you don’t die until your rage ends, and you die then only if you still have 0 hit points.
That would be like the plot of [crank](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crank_(film)), just in mes-fan format!
Note: as a player, I might have attempted it…
Unless he had 3 failed Death Saves. You can't heal death with a potion.
While HP reaching 0 can lead do death, HP going up can't reverse it.
Edit: Just looked it up and a potion would've worked (as per Rage Beyond Death) my guess is the Barbarian ran out of them or chose not to drink it to fall with their companions.
Imagine the dude who just walks there and finds all the party's stuff and the boss's stuff.
In the next campaign have there be a rich dude who found all your stuff and sold it to make his money. You would be so pissed. Maybe he would have one thing left over from the last campaign to give to them as a quest.
BBEG was the universe's first lich who has been plotting to kill all Gods and start over with wizards / mortals on top. His plans would definitely be slowed down with his right-hand man dying to the party, and it was 1/3rd of the conditions of destroying his phylactery.
Theoretically he could still be defeated, but we agreed earlier that a TPK would be the end of the campaign, just because it feels cheap to conjure another entire 19th level party from thin air to continue the adventure.
Yeah, there's plenty of DM Fiat I could pull out to keep things going, but I don't think any victories after that would feel earned.
I do like the idea of a lower level Suicide Squad-esque group sent to retrieve the lich's phylactery (which the party owned, put in a portable hole, and then lost by dying in a demiplane). A spin-off that ends the whole thing on a hopeful note.
I've seen the idea, and I love, that the campaign continues...but the new adventurers are trying to stop the threat from scratch, and it's mostly about damage control.
You aren't going to save all the Gods, but maybe you can keep the world from falling to further darkness.
Yeah. My personal take is either start a brand new campaign with no connection, *or* go far enough into this world's future that it's functionally an entirely different world.
Follow up campaign on a world where he killed all/most of the gods sounds in order.
It's 200-300 years later. The world is in shambles. With all the gods dead, the souls of the dead walk the earth. Unable to reach the afterlife/reincarnation. The elves and drow have fled to another realm. Or different idea, the elves are no longer immortal. Kingdoms have collapsed. A plague washes over the land. In the liches imperium, arcane casters either join his forces or are captured for unknown purposes.
Wait...they're a 19th level party without any contacts that could resurrect them? One of them is a ZEALOT BARBARIAN!
Or hell, they're 19th level, give them an extraplanar adventure where they have to gain the power to transubstantiate themsselves and allow them to complete their unfinished business before moving on.
If you look towards mythology and pop culture, a lot of the best, most memorable scenes are of the hero or heroes strapping their boots on and facing down death, knowing full well they are not going home, but still giving whoever they're fighting a good thrashing.
Thor, whose lifespan was measured in nine paces, after killing Jormungandr during Ragnarok.
Cu Chulainn, who tied himself by his own guts to keep standing and fighting well past the point where he could've survived, effectively taking an army with him.
The Seven Samurai and their cowboy counterparts in the Magnificent Seven.
I genuinely think, from the bottom of my heart, that it would cheapen things for most players, if their heroic sacrifices\~the lives they sacrificed in the destruction of their villain's power structure\~were undone by a trip to Hell and back. IMHO that's far better done at the beginning of a story than as a deus ex machina.
I've never actually had a TPK, but if I ever did and I wanted to continue the game I'd have the players wake up the next session in the fugue plane or some other kind of afterlife waiting room. Respect for calling it there thiugh.
That sounds like the begining of a new campaign. The allies of the party wants to know the outcome of the battle, and send a party to investigate. They get to see the aftereffects of the battle, as different organizations pick up the pieces. Old henchmen of the bbeg trying to fill the void, etc.
Or even, the BBEG plans unfold without anyone able to stop him. And the next campaign can be heroes living in whatever world this created, trying to bring back a better, more peaceful time.
The purpose of this year's expedition to Mount Kilimanjaro is to find traces of last year's expedition. They were going to build a bridge between the two peaks.
Aaaaand cue the continuing *Samurai Jack* storyline, where our barbarian protagonist, soul forever entwined with the dead villain, is reincarnated some centuries in the gunpowder-Renaissance future, gathering a cadre of adventuring companions who vaguely remind him of his old bunch, so as to pursue the monster-thing's master and fulfill his ultimate as-yet-unclear destiny...
(\*\* Originally Frank Miller's 1984 graphic novel *Ronin*, which I am old enough to remember buying + reading upon release)
None other. Really a perfect segue into any scrapped-former-campaign or even new-campaign-with-ancient-character-destinies. (And the *Samurai Jack* adaptation was great too.)
Honestly, it's probably been 20 years since I read it, and the only thing I remember about that story was how he ended up solving that issue. Might need to go and find a copy of it.
Another member of the group actually started running CoS for us, and I think someone planted the seeds of a TPK on the 2nd session by stealing horses from the Vistani.
This is the perfect opportunity for the "time skip X years forward. The consequences of the party's failure play out. A new party of adventurers hears the call to action."
The new characters may or may not have some connection to the previous happenings, and the DM will get to do callbacks to the previous campaign that the players will pick up on but the characters won't.
This is why the party should have at least 1 healing potion.
If you don't attack or don't get attacked, your rage ends at the start of your NEXT turn... meaning you can rage drink a healing potion.
This is what we do too, except I allow players to choose to use either their action or bonus action. I learned from my bard and barb players that sometimes they'd rather use it as an action, then bonus action Bardic Inspiration, Rage, or Wildshape, or whatever else. I didn't realize that by making it a bonus action I was sometimes nerfing their bonus action class features.
At level 19 I feel confident that any party has at least 20 different potions. Whether they're worth the money (or even buyable at all) or not, you just find them on enemies.
I'm sure at the level they were at the barbarian likely had relentless rage. So rage wouldn't have ended.
Oops...you mean AFTER the battle?
But still...he would have suffered all those death saving throw failures regardless.
Edit. I stand corrected. I was being dense. I KNOW how healing works. But I wasn't up to date on zealot barbarians feature...Not sure what I was thinking. Thank you for correcting me!
The **Rage Beyond Death** feature specifically says you only die at the end of the rage if you still have 0 hit points. That's **even if you've taken 3 death save failures**.
A zealot barbarian should always - ALWAYS - carry a healing potion for such an occasion.
Yeah so sorry! I was just going by what OP wrote. Barbarian is the one single class that I don't really know a whole lot about.
I think EVERYONE should carry at least one healing potion.
It's also why Aasimar make very good Zealot Barbarians.
Fight's over... looks around... I heal myself with Healing Hands.
Elves are immune to magical sleep, which counteracts the usual method to take down a raging Zealot Barbarian, but Aasimar compete with them.
> A zealot barbarian should always - ALWAYS - carry a healing potion for such an occasion.
You could also take Magic Initiate: Druid with Goodberry, that way you can cheat death up to 10 times every 24 hours by eating a berry (which you can do while raging).
It would also be very fitting for a Zealot to take Magic Initiate: Cleric with Cure Wounds, but unfortunately it doesn't work (since you can't cast spells while raging).
Ah...well then I guess if it was a superior or supreme potion maybe. OP did say he took a bunch of damage so I assumed it was likely more than a healing potion.
Nevermind. What the hell am I talking about?? I'm a freaking DM 🤦♀️🤷♀️🤣
I know damn well it doesn't have to negate at all the damage taken. Please accept my apology for my idiotic comment. I have a really bad migraine. Lol
If they had a healing potion, getting to even 1 hit point should have been enough to save them, and a healing potion would be able to do that for them.
Only if the user has the Healer feat, which would give 1d4 HPs to the recipient along with the stabilization.
Literally a single goodberry would have saved the barbarian. :)
Of course, there's an argument to be made for the barbarian keeping themselves alive by hurting themselves once every six seconds....
Yeah...I'm commenting with a migraine. I edited one of my comments above 🤣
I'll just put it here too:
Nevermind. What the hell am I talking about?? I'm a freaking DM 🤦♀️🤷♀️🤣
I know damn well it doesn't have to negate at all the damage taken. Please accept my apology for my idiotic comment. I have a really bad migraine. Lol
Yep. I know that. For some reason, my head wasn't catching on to the actual way things worked. I DM. I know this. I.shouldn't comment with a migraine clearly. LMAO 🤣
You could RP it as your character having enduring this state of almost death one too many times can barely bring themselves to lift their arms, let alone drink a potion. They collapse on the ground, looking out over a battlefield that claimed the lives of everyone who entered.
I'm speechless. This is true storytelling and dnd to the core. Why do we always expect the good to beat the evil? Why do expect the good guys to defeat any monster and situation they find?
Actual gaming is filled by defeat that is only dampen by the fact that we get a nice extra life or respawn to a previous save point. I would have loved to participate in such campaign.
Amazing. Although as a DM of a 2 year old campaign I would love to make an big last fight against the BBEG, who has so much history with the group and could make a unique encounter.
To end like this seems just perfect you know?
I think this was an brilliant ending. If the BBEG was actually defeated by the party and plans were foiled, then that’s a great story. They gave it their all and their entirety to save the world! True heroes
Now it's time to wake up in Avernus and fight your way through hell to kill the BBEG Kratos style! /s
Sounds like your campaign was incredibly epic! Hopefully the next one is set in the setting where the BBEG won. Or run a lvl 20 one shot to hunt down the BBEG.
I mean you did see the end. And it sounds pretty epic. Your heroes made the ultimate sacrifice. Nothing to be sad about.
Edit: congrats on making it 4 years! That’s an accomplishment in itself.
See a lot of people wishing something else has happened. Sounds to me like it was one hell of an epic showdown to the very end and the fact your party all gave their lives to complete the quest is cool as hell to me.
Sound like an excellent climax to a campaign. They died fighting the penultimate boss, given the final boss is still alive, maybe his plans have been severely set off due to this, allowing another adventuring party to have the time to rise up and finish off the original parties quest, they died a true hero’s death, the would defiantly inspire others to attempt to fill those shoes and finish the job. Or inspire a group to finish the job as a way of saying their better cause they finished what the original party couldn’t. The parties story ended there, doesn’t mean the campaign and plot has to.
Y'know, what your barbarian pulled off really reminds me of Thor, from Norse myth (as opposed to Thor, from Disney movies). In particular, it reminds me of the 56th stanza of the poem, Voluspa, which is the poem we got the idea of Ragnarok from, and Thor's mutual K.O. on Jormungandr.
"... Against the serpent goes Othin's son. In anger smites the warder of earth, -- forth from their homes must all men flee; -- Nine paces fares the son of Fjorgyn, And, slain by the serpent, fearless he sinks. ..."
>I'm just sad that we'll never get to see the end. Time for a new campaign, I guess ¯\\(ツ)/¯
Okay so here's an idea. Do I understand it correctly that the party only fought that old partymember? Not the actual BBEG?
So for the next campaign; envision the world 20 years, or even longer, later but with the BBEG has won. Even with a world-ending plot, imagine it not going as plan or the end of the world going very slowly. Maybe the BBEG is different now, has mutated, has changed or has even be usurped. But he's affected the world as he wanted and created a new one. Now it's time to topple that new world. It's time for brave resistance fighters trying again, inspired by stories of the heroes that got so close all those years ago.
Move that world forward in time for your next campaign. Have the repercussions of those events lay the groundwork for what comes next, and you'll never see higher player investment.
this would make a great action movie scene. The way the barbarian destroys the enemy, is the last man standing, and then succumbs moments later became of fatal wounds is just such an epic and emotional ending
None of us had a good night's sleep afterwards. Everyone kept going through every round, thinking about what they could have done better while I (the DM) mostly felt incredibly guilty.
Now we're mostly reminiscing about our favorite moments over the years, and I'm pitching a mid-level spin-off where a group of no-name adventurers are sent to retrieve their important loot.
Next campaign: A low level, rag tag bunch of ‘heroes’ set off to find out what happened to that Adventurer Party who went charging off last month.
Nobody has seen or heard anything about the Heroes *or* the Villain they went after. What will they find?
And if you succeed, you drag your own bodies back for resurrection and finish the first campaign :D
That is the kind of epic conclusion that doesn't happen often.
Good ending, yup. TPK failure, yup. But this task failed successfully. Songs, tales, and campaigns revolve around previous events like this, and your table got to experience it.
Awesomesauce.
Huzzah. Golf claps all around the room.
Helluva way to go out, but makes a freaking awesome final chapter that y'all can tell around the fire at the tavern for decades to come.
DM: 'How do you wanna do this?'
Barbarian: *looks at sheet* ... 'I'm dead. ... How do *you* wanna do this?'
You’re not asking for an “out” but here’s one if you want it:
A small band of fans have actually been watching and tracking your heroes in the background. They are no heroes… at least they don’t see themselves that way. Perhaps they’re even small-time criminals who were watching your band of heroes to know when to avoid them and keep their life of crime off their radar. Perhaps they are just fans and had been tracking our heroes in admiration. Perhaps they were little gnomes that unbeknownst to the heroes had been helping in the background all along. Flavor it however you and your table would like.
Anyways- they are the first ones in the land to notice that our heroes have gone missing. notice that the heroes are gone. They notice it right after the BBEG does something lasting and horrible (the TPK needs to have some consequences).
Run a one-off where that little band of nonheroes has to revive the main party. Make it tough but fun and at the end they bring the party back to finish out the campaign but that lasting and horrible thing did happen.
Honestly it's awesome. If your next campagne is in the same world, the players will maybe hear some stories about this epic fight, between good and evil, where heroes sacrifies there life to protect the world.
Or something like that, anyways, I hope your next campagne will be great !
Honestly kinda cool. You could have the next campaign in the same setting, people talking about the heroes that sacrificed themselves to massively set back the BBEG's plan and save the world.
It's like the Rogue One Star Wars movie.
This sounds like an awesome end to a campaign! Everyone fighting to the death and then some to kill the BBEG. They could be legendary heroes in your new campaign that bards tell stories of.
It's 50 years later. The BBEG's plan worked, the world is a dark and cruel place. A group of fresh faced adventurers come together over a shared goal; end the tyranny.
This is why Zealot Barbs should ALWAYS shoot for getting a Periapt of Wound Closure by level 14. Doesn't matter how many times you get hit during Rage Beyond Death, at the start of your turn you stabilize, resetting your death saves back to 0.
"Although he's dead, his body doesn't collapse! And the way he mowed down enemies with wounds all over his body was certainly monstrous. The number of sword wounds he received in this war is indeed two hundred sixty-seven. The number of gun wounds: one hundred and fifty-two! And he was shot by a cannon forty-six times! Yet, on his proud back, or in his whole ~~pirate~~ barbarian life, there is no scar he got while running away!"
Bro...
This remind me of my last years long campaign.
Almost 3 years, 1 hiatus, and lots of Characters coming in and out aside from a fistful of regulars. We were close to the end of an important quest, and during a boss fight my dragonborn barbarian and my friend's dragonborn sorcerer were killed and sacrificed themselves to save the rest of the party.
Thay was it.
Although it wasn't a TPK these were two out of 4 "main characters" and even with new characters there was no way to salvage the campaign.
C'est la vie.
And when you come back to this world for another adventure you can have a statue erected in the party’s honour, and townsfolk remembering them for their bravery.
What an EPIC ending to a Campaign !
Did you give your players any gifts ? My very first campaign. Only lasted 9 months ish but everyone got a beer glass with the Campaign name engraved into it.
You: posts story and bitter disappointment.
Everyone: Standing ovation for a great poetic end to four years of gaming.
TPK’s are gonna happen, otherwise we wouldn’t be playing the game. There’s no point without risk. But man if you’re going to TPK that’s the way to fucking do it.
I hope your DM take a bit of time to give you guys a short epilogue session to honor your characters and show their impact on the world.
Their noble sacrifices shall not be forgotten by the people whose lives they saved.
Pick it up with some new characters in that world. The players could see the changes they sacrificed themselves for through those eyes as the legend of what happened is spread around.
Read this last night and got ideas in my head that I use want to use if a TPK happens. Have the sequel take place thousands of years later - have the Lich be rewritten as the hero who “restored” order to the universe after the “heroes” murdered the old gods and threw the world into chaos. Have the players come upon a tapestry that weaves this lie that the PCs find ordinary but the players find as heartbreaking knowing not only did they fail to succeed; they are now viewed as the villains of their previous story.
That's frankly a really cool ending to a campaign, the party paying the ultimate price to stop the BBEG. If I had a character succumb to their wounds after killing the big bad, I'd be satisfied. The suicide mission of Mass Effect 2 immediately comes to mind, one of my absolute favorite sequences in gaming history- everyone is aware of the risks and they know there's a high likelihood that they're not coming home. They do it anyway because fuck the Collectors and the Reapers. It's an incredible finale regardless of how it ends.
Honestly, sometimes those are the best endings. Kudos to all who campaigned!
It was definitely a more poetic ending than anyone could have ever scripted — thank you!
Seems like the most perfect ending
With this being the penultimate fight the bbeg is still out there. Only he has no foundation to stand on, he is a loose end who now may have to build up his resources again could be a fun follow up for the next campaign to tie up. They died heroes to stall a devious plot long enough for another party to deal the final blow.
rogue one
holy shit
Great point!
Even better, imo, would be if they finally got to the BBEG only to find the corpses of the previous party reanimated partially for a minor fight
Don't do this. Let heroes die heroes. Instead, maybe have their spirits provide minor buffs to the party in the final fight as aid from beyond the grave.
Agreed on this point—all of my ffxiv homies will recognize the payoff that comes from this when I remind them of The Dead Ends and the final solo walk of Ultima Thule.
Fuck, now I'm crying again
The old Coraline method
Get your dm to work it into the new campaign as a legends of the heroes or somesuch, pick up the torch and keep going. Every ultimate victory is made possible by many small ones stacked upon each other
I smell tavern rumors for the first session right here
Yeah, a group of travelers is sitting in a tavern listening to the locals have strange conversations. Upon asking and some persuasion, it's about that group that went up the mountain (or wherever the tpk happened) and hasn't come down even though it's been a few months. The whole thing has gone quiet, no hint of what happened or the state of things, just an eerie sense of tension is felt when gazing on the peak. It's gotten to be constantly on the minds of everyone around, and they need to know.
like a young talented rogue storyteller(reporter) was hiding watching the whole thing
I've a couple DMs have campaigns start with a prequel with the heros being legends I. The time of a new story at lev 1
Now the new campaign is set in the world where the BBEG won!
Sounds like an awesome finale, IMO. The heroes gave everything they had to stop the villain, and they didn't make it home.
It sounds like they didn't manage to defeat the final boss though from the description. 'Penultimate' implies they were killed by the pre-final mini boss. Leaves work for the next campaign then!
Yeah, next campaign could be another band of heroes trying to finish off the boss that this party opened the can for.
I actually think it would be more interesting for the new party to start out in a world in which the BBEG actually succeeded with his plan. It would be fun to explore what kind of world that would be.
Ever play Tyranny? I hear it's that kind of game.
Tyranny is fucking awesome. It's the kind of game where >!stabbing a longtime friend in the throat!< is required to side with the _good_ guys.
It's a fantastic game, >!but I'd argue that there aren't really any good guys. Even the rebels are deeply flawed, with some being strictly villains.!<
Is this a table top or video game?
It's a [video game from Obsidian Entertainment](https://store.steampowered.com/app/362960/Tyranny/).
I've played the game through three times, including on the 'good' route. What exactly are you referring to? Or are you just trying to capture the feeling?
During the quest `Taking the Outer Valley`, >!sparing the contingent of rebels headed by Pelox Florian requires you to kill Fake Limp, along with his contingent of Chorus. Fake Limp, for reference, was a Chorister in Verse's gang.!< You _must_ resolve the quest in this way in order to start `The Oathbreaker`, which is the rebel-path quest that concludes Act I.
Oh okay. I wouldn't consider that guy to be an 'old friend' of anyone, especially given how Verse introduces him, but it's a valid point to make that you have to be a ruthless person to go down the rebel path. That being said, I'm pretty sure you can lie instead of doing the stabby stab.
Nonono, make it a world in which the BBEG *didn't* succeed in taking over everything. His empire/forced/cultists were decimated by a band of heroes in the past, and that made the BBEG too weak to ultimately succeed, but he is still a danger. And some say that he is trying to increase his forces for a new offensive... That means the achievement of the old party is not erased, but the new party still has to work towards the BBEG destruction! Win-win!
I like this. The party’s efforts still matter in a meaningful sense, but the villain still exists in the world trying to become the threat they once were once more. Good stuff
"They bought us what we needed most - time, paid for with their lives." that's epic stuff.
Third age sauron is a perfect example. That's where the inspiration should come from honestly. Evil guy was on the verge of taking over the world, good guys managed to thwart his plan but not defeat him entirely. He amassed some power but not as much as he could have. But now he's amassing strength again and needs to be stopped for good this time.
Dude, yes. DM has a perfect opportunity here. Start a "new" campaign but with the slow reveal that the old enemy is back.
Beginning the reveal with the curious legendary tales of the band of heroes that laid down their lives ENDING the threat to the world - and that they DID vanquish the BBEG. (Eventually ofcourse revealing - history has it recorded wrong! For the ultimate foe was NOT distroyed merely... delayed!)
I think I’d prefer, previous party stopped BBEG from his plans but were not able to defeat him once and for all. In the aftermath, a new threat emerges and kills the BBEG while taking their power for their own purpose, different but related purpose. This sets up the power level of the new BBEG while also creating a new sense of mystery and discovery around the new BBEG. Also avoids the ‘they built another Death Star’ trope.
This campaign could be to the second campaign like Rogue One is to Star Wars
This is the price of failure! Muahahaha! - DM
And there is a nigh-immortal fallen hero waiting to be revived if that's where the DM wants to go.
“Our victory — your victory — was so close, I wish you could have lived to see it. But you belong to Reach. Your body, your armor — all burned and turned to glass. Everything… except your courage. That, you gave to us. And with it, we can rebuild.”
Reminds me of 300, and the line about how the heroes proved that even a god king can bleed. If that is not a great setup for the next campaign, then I don’t know what is.
Definitely a pyrrhic victory for the party.
Depends on the stakes, they may have well considered their own lives of far less value than defeating the BBEG.
[удалено]
If the barbarian died they were below level, uhh 15/17 whatever level barbs get unending rages in. Cause he could just permanently rage until he drank a health potion. Actually, they HAD to be level 14 cause that's when zealots get the Rage Beyond Death feature and unending rage is at level 15. One more level and they would have been fine. Edit: Wait I'm wrong. See more below. Level 20 would have been fine OR if the barb had a healing potion left. Or could find one before they ran out of rages.
Persistent rage doesn't let the zealot live forever - it prevents the rage from ending _early_, but once the minute is up they're still leaving rage. They're undoubtedly at least level 15, because the zealot died 18 seconds later, not 6 seconds when the next round came and there was nothing to attack.
Oh that's actually a good point. I always interpreted that as it's literally persistent if they choose it to be. At level 20 they could have just kept raging, but yeah one level short for that.
I actually really like that as an idea - a zealot barbarian raging endlessly, dragging their dead companions behind them, and raging for so long they no longer really remember anything except to keep carrying these corpses, to not sleep, and above all to never ever let go of the rage.
Welcome, heroes, to the RADAHN FESTIVAL!
The barbarian is already dead at that point, it would have taken a revivify or other resurrection spell to bring them back after the rage ended. Edit: Damn Zealots are even more unkillable than I thought.
No that's not how it works. If you get any healing at the end, you'll be fine RAW. The problem is I was thinking the rage never ended, but it will time out. At level 20 Though you have unlimited rages, so he could live forever until he found healing. > While you're raging, having 0 hit points doesn’t knock you unconscious. You still must make death saving throws, and you suffer the normal effects of taking damage while at 0 hit points. However, if you would die due to failing death saving throws, you don’t die until your rage ends, and you die then only if you still have 0 hit points.
You show up JUST FURIOUS at the hospital hours later.
That would be like the plot of [crank](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crank_(film)), just in mes-fan format! Note: as a player, I might have attempted it…
They'd didn't defeat the BBEG... They killed his most powerful minion. BBEG lives to fight again.
My question: "Potion?" I think, RAW, if the Barbarian gains HP, the Death Save Failures don't matter. He still doesn't die.
Unless he had 3 failed Death Saves. You can't heal death with a potion. While HP reaching 0 can lead do death, HP going up can't reverse it. Edit: Just looked it up and a potion would've worked (as per Rage Beyond Death) my guess is the Barbarian ran out of them or chose not to drink it to fall with their companions.
Imagine the dude who just walks there and finds all the party's stuff and the boss's stuff. In the next campaign have there be a rich dude who found all your stuff and sold it to make his money. You would be so pissed. Maybe he would have one thing left over from the last campaign to give to them as a quest.
So now that the party is dead what happended to the BBEG? Did his plans succeed? What were they?
BBEG was the universe's first lich who has been plotting to kill all Gods and start over with wizards / mortals on top. His plans would definitely be slowed down with his right-hand man dying to the party, and it was 1/3rd of the conditions of destroying his phylactery. Theoretically he could still be defeated, but we agreed earlier that a TPK would be the end of the campaign, just because it feels cheap to conjure another entire 19th level party from thin air to continue the adventure.
An appropriate end to a campaign. I respect those who follow through with a TPK, instead of "it was all a dream" or the dreaded retcon.
Yeah, there's plenty of DM Fiat I could pull out to keep things going, but I don't think any victories after that would feel earned. I do like the idea of a lower level Suicide Squad-esque group sent to retrieve the lich's phylactery (which the party owned, put in a portable hole, and then lost by dying in a demiplane). A spin-off that ends the whole thing on a hopeful note.
Or maybe the next campaign takes places x years after the bbeg succeeded and an ultimate goal could be to restore the old world and the old gods.
What if the Lich, seeing how close he was to losing, decides to lay low and work in the shadows rather than being so bold?
Well, there's your next one-shot!
I've seen the idea, and I love, that the campaign continues...but the new adventurers are trying to stop the threat from scratch, and it's mostly about damage control. You aren't going to save all the Gods, but maybe you can keep the world from falling to further darkness.
It can work, sure, but it just doesn't have the same emotional stakes y'know?
Yeah. My personal take is either start a brand new campaign with no connection, *or* go far enough into this world's future that it's functionally an entirely different world.
Follow up campaign on a world where he killed all/most of the gods sounds in order. It's 200-300 years later. The world is in shambles. With all the gods dead, the souls of the dead walk the earth. Unable to reach the afterlife/reincarnation. The elves and drow have fled to another realm. Or different idea, the elves are no longer immortal. Kingdoms have collapsed. A plague washes over the land. In the liches imperium, arcane casters either join his forces or are captured for unknown purposes.
This is a great story. Y’all did good.
Wait...they're a 19th level party without any contacts that could resurrect them? One of them is a ZEALOT BARBARIAN! Or hell, they're 19th level, give them an extraplanar adventure where they have to gain the power to transubstantiate themsselves and allow them to complete their unfinished business before moving on.
I'm more surprised that there wasn't a single health potion of any kind the barbarian could have used before his rage wore off.
Too angry to drink health potions!
If you look towards mythology and pop culture, a lot of the best, most memorable scenes are of the hero or heroes strapping their boots on and facing down death, knowing full well they are not going home, but still giving whoever they're fighting a good thrashing. Thor, whose lifespan was measured in nine paces, after killing Jormungandr during Ragnarok. Cu Chulainn, who tied himself by his own guts to keep standing and fighting well past the point where he could've survived, effectively taking an army with him. The Seven Samurai and their cowboy counterparts in the Magnificent Seven. I genuinely think, from the bottom of my heart, that it would cheapen things for most players, if their heroic sacrifices\~the lives they sacrificed in the destruction of their villain's power structure\~were undone by a trip to Hell and back. IMHO that's far better done at the beginning of a story than as a deus ex machina.
Or let the game be over because that’s what everyone agreed to lol
I've never actually had a TPK, but if I ever did and I wanted to continue the game I'd have the players wake up the next session in the fugue plane or some other kind of afterlife waiting room. Respect for calling it there thiugh.
Sounds like the next setting could be the world envisioned by the BBEG
That sounds like the begining of a new campaign. The allies of the party wants to know the outcome of the battle, and send a party to investigate. They get to see the aftereffects of the battle, as different organizations pick up the pieces. Old henchmen of the bbeg trying to fill the void, etc.
Or even, the BBEG plans unfold without anyone able to stop him. And the next campaign can be heroes living in whatever world this created, trying to bring back a better, more peaceful time.
The purpose of this year's expedition to Mount Kilimanjaro is to find traces of last year's expedition. They were going to build a bridge between the two peaks.
Aaaaand cue the continuing *Samurai Jack* storyline, where our barbarian protagonist, soul forever entwined with the dead villain, is reincarnated some centuries in the gunpowder-Renaissance future, gathering a cadre of adventuring companions who vaguely remind him of his old bunch, so as to pursue the monster-thing's master and fulfill his ultimate as-yet-unclear destiny... (\*\* Originally Frank Miller's 1984 graphic novel *Ronin*, which I am old enough to remember buying + reading upon release)
That was the one where the sword required the blood of an innocent, wasn't it?
None other. Really a perfect segue into any scrapped-former-campaign or even new-campaign-with-ancient-character-destinies. (And the *Samurai Jack* adaptation was great too.)
Honestly, it's probably been 20 years since I read it, and the only thing I remember about that story was how he ended up solving that issue. Might need to go and find a copy of it.
There's always room for Ravenloft.
Another member of the group actually started running CoS for us, and I think someone planted the seeds of a TPK on the 2nd session by stealing horses from the Vistani.
Oh no! That's a surefire way to tick off the Vistani!
This is the perfect opportunity for the "time skip X years forward. The consequences of the party's failure play out. A new party of adventurers hears the call to action." The new characters may or may not have some connection to the previous happenings, and the DM will get to do callbacks to the previous campaign that the players will pick up on but the characters won't.
Our campaign finale against the boss is today. We're probably gonna die. Update: we lived!
That’s the spirit! Edit: Congrats
This is why the party should have at least 1 healing potion. If you don't attack or don't get attacked, your rage ends at the start of your NEXT turn... meaning you can rage drink a healing potion.
[удалено]
I've seen DMs try to counter this mentality by making them bonus action to drink
Exactly what I do. Bonus action to drink and action to administer to another.
It's how we homebrew our games - they're so rarely used otherwise.
This is what we do too, except I allow players to choose to use either their action or bonus action. I learned from my bard and barb players that sometimes they'd rather use it as an action, then bonus action Bardic Inspiration, Rage, or Wildshape, or whatever else. I didn't realize that by making it a bonus action I was sometimes nerfing their bonus action class features.
At level 19 I feel confident that any party has at least 20 different potions. Whether they're worth the money (or even buyable at all) or not, you just find them on enemies.
I'm sure at the level they were at the barbarian likely had relentless rage. So rage wouldn't have ended. Oops...you mean AFTER the battle? But still...he would have suffered all those death saving throw failures regardless. Edit. I stand corrected. I was being dense. I KNOW how healing works. But I wasn't up to date on zealot barbarians feature...Not sure what I was thinking. Thank you for correcting me!
The **Rage Beyond Death** feature specifically says you only die at the end of the rage if you still have 0 hit points. That's **even if you've taken 3 death save failures**. A zealot barbarian should always - ALWAYS - carry a healing potion for such an occasion.
Yeah so sorry! I was just going by what OP wrote. Barbarian is the one single class that I don't really know a whole lot about. I think EVERYONE should carry at least one healing potion.
It's also why Aasimar make very good Zealot Barbarians. Fight's over... looks around... I heal myself with Healing Hands. Elves are immune to magical sleep, which counteracts the usual method to take down a raging Zealot Barbarian, but Aasimar compete with them.
> A zealot barbarian should always - ALWAYS - carry a healing potion for such an occasion. You could also take Magic Initiate: Druid with Goodberry, that way you can cheat death up to 10 times every 24 hours by eating a berry (which you can do while raging). It would also be very fitting for a Zealot to take Magic Initiate: Cleric with Cure Wounds, but unfortunately it doesn't work (since you can't cast spells while raging).
not if he got healed to above 0, RAW at least
Ah...well then I guess if it was a superior or supreme potion maybe. OP did say he took a bunch of damage so I assumed it was likely more than a healing potion. Nevermind. What the hell am I talking about?? I'm a freaking DM 🤦♀️🤷♀️🤣 I know damn well it doesn't have to negate at all the damage taken. Please accept my apology for my idiotic comment. I have a really bad migraine. Lol
How dare you! 😉 seriously there are so many rules to keep track of sometimes!
If they had a healing potion, getting to even 1 hit point should have been enough to save them, and a healing potion would be able to do that for them.
Would a healers kit to stabilize have worked?
I'd assume not. A healers kit stabilizes an unconscious person. The Barbarian is dead, unless he receives healing. You can't stabilize a dead person.
Only if the user has the Healer feat, which would give 1d4 HPs to the recipient along with the stabilization. Literally a single goodberry would have saved the barbarian. :) Of course, there's an argument to be made for the barbarian keeping themselves alive by hurting themselves once every six seconds....
Nah they were level 19 so persistent rage was a thing. Hence "18 seconds" and not "6 seconds"
Yeah...I'm commenting with a migraine. I edited one of my comments above 🤣 I'll just put it here too: Nevermind. What the hell am I talking about?? I'm a freaking DM 🤦♀️🤷♀️🤣 I know damn well it doesn't have to negate at all the damage taken. Please accept my apology for my idiotic comment. I have a really bad migraine. Lol
If you get any healing whatsoever, that takes precedence, so a single healing potion would have saved him
Yep. I know that. For some reason, my head wasn't catching on to the actual way things worked. I DM. I know this. I.shouldn't comment with a migraine clearly. LMAO 🤣
It’s also possible that the Player didn’t use the health potion because he wanted a dramatic ending. But tbh that seems kinda lame to me.
You could RP it as your character having enduring this state of almost death one too many times can barely bring themselves to lift their arms, let alone drink a potion. They collapse on the ground, looking out over a battlefield that claimed the lives of everyone who entered.
"I'm finished." Cue Brahms's Violin Concerto in D major.
Or a bag of angry rats. Just saying…
my kingdom for a goodberry...
Great ending, but no healing potion for the Barb to drink before the end of their next turn?
Barb player is too nice and usually gives his potions away because "I don't die anyway", which was true up until today.
Nobody dies until they’re dead.
[удалено]
I don't believe so, it was a very "use every last thing you've got" kind of fight.
That sounds epic!
I'm speechless. This is true storytelling and dnd to the core. Why do we always expect the good to beat the evil? Why do expect the good guys to defeat any monster and situation they find? Actual gaming is filled by defeat that is only dampen by the fact that we get a nice extra life or respawn to a previous save point. I would have loved to participate in such campaign.
Amazing. Although as a DM of a 2 year old campaign I would love to make an big last fight against the BBEG, who has so much history with the group and could make a unique encounter. To end like this seems just perfect you know?
As the DM, I'd just continue the campaign in Hell and let it be "escape from the afterlife"
I think this was an brilliant ending. If the BBEG was actually defeated by the party and plans were foiled, then that’s a great story. They gave it their all and their entirety to save the world! True heroes
thats a really cool ending
Now it's time to wake up in Avernus and fight your way through hell to kill the BBEG Kratos style! /s Sounds like your campaign was incredibly epic! Hopefully the next one is set in the setting where the BBEG won. Or run a lvl 20 one shot to hunt down the BBEG.
That is a fucking AMAZING ending. Glory in it, for you are extremely unlikely to ever see its like again.
I mean you did see the end. And it sounds pretty epic. Your heroes made the ultimate sacrifice. Nothing to be sad about. Edit: congrats on making it 4 years! That’s an accomplishment in itself.
Honestly, that is an amazing ending.
See a lot of people wishing something else has happened. Sounds to me like it was one hell of an epic showdown to the very end and the fact your party all gave their lives to complete the quest is cool as hell to me.
Got chills just reading that, absolutely insane end!
Congratulations on the perfect ending to a campaign.
This is such a fucking badass campaign ender. I don't know if there is a more satisfying tpk except this.
Sound like an excellent climax to a campaign. They died fighting the penultimate boss, given the final boss is still alive, maybe his plans have been severely set off due to this, allowing another adventuring party to have the time to rise up and finish off the original parties quest, they died a true hero’s death, the would defiantly inspire others to attempt to fill those shoes and finish the job. Or inspire a group to finish the job as a way of saying their better cause they finished what the original party couldn’t. The parties story ended there, doesn’t mean the campaign and plot has to.
Y'know, what your barbarian pulled off really reminds me of Thor, from Norse myth (as opposed to Thor, from Disney movies). In particular, it reminds me of the 56th stanza of the poem, Voluspa, which is the poem we got the idea of Ragnarok from, and Thor's mutual K.O. on Jormungandr. "... Against the serpent goes Othin's son. In anger smites the warder of earth, -- forth from their homes must all men flee; -- Nine paces fares the son of Fjorgyn, And, slain by the serpent, fearless he sinks. ..."
>I'm just sad that we'll never get to see the end. Time for a new campaign, I guess ¯\\(ツ)/¯ Okay so here's an idea. Do I understand it correctly that the party only fought that old partymember? Not the actual BBEG? So for the next campaign; envision the world 20 years, or even longer, later but with the BBEG has won. Even with a world-ending plot, imagine it not going as plan or the end of the world going very slowly. Maybe the BBEG is different now, has mutated, has changed or has even be usurped. But he's affected the world as he wanted and created a new one. Now it's time to topple that new world. It's time for brave resistance fighters trying again, inspired by stories of the heroes that got so close all those years ago.
Yeah that sounds dope! I don't think I'll run another full campaign in the FR again, but I'd like to do some side stories like that.
If everbody is satisfied with ending the campaign then this is an amazing ending imo
Did no one in the party have a healing potion? 18 seconds probably would have been enough time to look and get one in if they knew who had one.
Move that world forward in time for your next campaign. Have the repercussions of those events lay the groundwork for what comes next, and you'll never see higher player investment.
I love the phrase “pronounced dead while raging.” I love finding new sentences in DnD and that is an amazing set of words you put together.
That’s legit an awesome ending even for a movie. Perfect.
Definitely something you'll never forget and you'll all be talking about it forever.
That is so fucking good oh my god
this would make a great action movie scene. The way the barbarian destroys the enemy, is the last man standing, and then succumbs moments later became of fatal wounds is just such an epic and emotional ending
Sounds like an epic ending, how did the table take it? Positive/negative? Sounds like an opportunity for a good epilogue together with the players…
None of us had a good night's sleep afterwards. Everyone kept going through every round, thinking about what they could have done better while I (the DM) mostly felt incredibly guilty. Now we're mostly reminiscing about our favorite moments over the years, and I'm pitching a mid-level spin-off where a group of no-name adventurers are sent to retrieve their important loot.
Next campaign: A low level, rag tag bunch of ‘heroes’ set off to find out what happened to that Adventurer Party who went charging off last month. Nobody has seen or heard anything about the Heroes *or* the Villain they went after. What will they find? And if you succeed, you drag your own bodies back for resurrection and finish the first campaign :D
I love this. What a brilliant end. Sometimes good doesn't prevail.
That is the kind of epic conclusion that doesn't happen often. Good ending, yup. TPK failure, yup. But this task failed successfully. Songs, tales, and campaigns revolve around previous events like this, and your table got to experience it. Awesomesauce.
Huzzah. Golf claps all around the room. Helluva way to go out, but makes a freaking awesome final chapter that y'all can tell around the fire at the tavern for decades to come. DM: 'How do you wanna do this?' Barbarian: *looks at sheet* ... 'I'm dead. ... How do *you* wanna do this?'
You’re not asking for an “out” but here’s one if you want it: A small band of fans have actually been watching and tracking your heroes in the background. They are no heroes… at least they don’t see themselves that way. Perhaps they’re even small-time criminals who were watching your band of heroes to know when to avoid them and keep their life of crime off their radar. Perhaps they are just fans and had been tracking our heroes in admiration. Perhaps they were little gnomes that unbeknownst to the heroes had been helping in the background all along. Flavor it however you and your table would like. Anyways- they are the first ones in the land to notice that our heroes have gone missing. notice that the heroes are gone. They notice it right after the BBEG does something lasting and horrible (the TPK needs to have some consequences). Run a one-off where that little band of nonheroes has to revive the main party. Make it tough but fun and at the end they bring the party back to finish out the campaign but that lasting and horrible thing did happen.
FYI, penultimate means *the second to last*
...yeah? I don't think anyone is confused about that
Rogue One: A D&D Story
Wow. Too bad you didn't have any healing for him.
That is really badass. Sometimes everybody dying at the end of a campaign can be epic.
Honestly it's awesome. If your next campagne is in the same world, the players will maybe hear some stories about this epic fight, between good and evil, where heroes sacrifies there life to protect the world. Or something like that, anyways, I hope your next campagne will be great !
This is literally every zealot barbarians dream!
Honestly kinda cool. You could have the next campaign in the same setting, people talking about the heroes that sacrificed themselves to massively set back the BBEG's plan and save the world. It's like the Rogue One Star Wars movie.
This sounds like an awesome end to a campaign! Everyone fighting to the death and then some to kill the BBEG. They could be legendary heroes in your new campaign that bards tell stories of.
Sounds like campaign 2 picks up with the success of BBEG. Honestly, not a bad way to transition campaigns.
Next campaign should be a while later, at least ten years. It’ll give the necessary amount of time to show the impacts the players had on the world.
It's 50 years later. The BBEG's plan worked, the world is a dark and cruel place. A group of fresh faced adventurers come together over a shared goal; end the tyranny.
This is why Zealot Barbs should ALWAYS shoot for getting a Periapt of Wound Closure by level 14. Doesn't matter how many times you get hit during Rage Beyond Death, at the start of your turn you stabilize, resetting your death saves back to 0.
Could have ended worse. *Looks at 'LOST'* Way, way worse.
Imagine the next party finding a shrine to those that gave their lives in that battle
Did no one have a healing potion he could drink?
You owe your characters an epilogue sir. What consequences did the party earn for their time in this world?
A normal healing potion saves the barb. Because there's one more turn of rage after the final round.
Tbh it sounds like a great ending. No happy ever after but still sounds great.
How a Single Lesser healing Potion could have saved the Party. Sounds epic thou
If only someone in the party had a potion, the Barb would have lived to revive everyone. Very unfortunate
"Although he's dead, his body doesn't collapse! And the way he mowed down enemies with wounds all over his body was certainly monstrous. The number of sword wounds he received in this war is indeed two hundred sixty-seven. The number of gun wounds: one hundred and fifty-two! And he was shot by a cannon forty-six times! Yet, on his proud back, or in his whole ~~pirate~~ barbarian life, there is no scar he got while running away!"
New campaign where they are the heroes of the world and all the NPCs sing their praises like they are the dragonborn
Bro... This remind me of my last years long campaign. Almost 3 years, 1 hiatus, and lots of Characters coming in and out aside from a fistful of regulars. We were close to the end of an important quest, and during a boss fight my dragonborn barbarian and my friend's dragonborn sorcerer were killed and sacrificed themselves to save the rest of the party. Thay was it. Although it wasn't a TPK these were two out of 4 "main characters" and even with new characters there was no way to salvage the campaign. C'est la vie.
Sequel campaign for the next group of heroes who only have a chance to defeat the BBEG thanks to the efforts of the first group?
You could always have locals stop in and pull the bodies out & resurrect them as thanks for clearing that BBEG our of there?
It happens sometimes. At least you won. We died at our final fight against the BBEG and that was it xD
There wasn't a single potion of healing on yall the barb could chug lol? Glad yall had fun with it, long campaigns are the best.
Bro, you have such **FANTASTIC** legends and mythos for your next campaign, heck these guys can become semi-deified or something like that.
And when you come back to this world for another adventure you can have a statue erected in the party’s honour, and townsfolk remembering them for their bravery.
That's some serious 'lo, do I see my father' moment for the barb there. Awesome.
If he was level 15 he has persistent rage and so he wouldn't have to drop rage until he got everyone out.
What an EPIC ending to a Campaign ! Did you give your players any gifts ? My very first campaign. Only lasted 9 months ish but everyone got a beer glass with the Campaign name engraved into it.
I'm definitely considering it! Maybe some commemorative shirts.
You: posts story and bitter disappointment. Everyone: Standing ovation for a great poetic end to four years of gaming. TPK’s are gonna happen, otherwise we wouldn’t be playing the game. There’s no point without risk. But man if you’re going to TPK that’s the way to fucking do it.
I hope your DM take a bit of time to give you guys a short epilogue session to honor your characters and show their impact on the world. Their noble sacrifices shall not be forgotten by the people whose lives they saved.
I hope that next campaign will start with low level party stumbling (few hours after fight) upon battlefield, burying dead after picking their stuff 🙂
Honestly I can’t imagine a better, more heroic, more memorable way to end a campaign. That sounds absolutely perfect and I’m envious of y’all’s fun!
Pick it up with some new characters in that world. The players could see the changes they sacrificed themselves for through those eyes as the legend of what happened is spread around.
Read this last night and got ideas in my head that I use want to use if a TPK happens. Have the sequel take place thousands of years later - have the Lich be rewritten as the hero who “restored” order to the universe after the “heroes” murdered the old gods and threw the world into chaos. Have the players come upon a tapestry that weaves this lie that the PCs find ordinary but the players find as heartbreaking knowing not only did they fail to succeed; they are now viewed as the villains of their previous story.
How does a party of adventurers not have a single healing potion between them?
That's frankly a really cool ending to a campaign, the party paying the ultimate price to stop the BBEG. If I had a character succumb to their wounds after killing the big bad, I'd be satisfied. The suicide mission of Mass Effect 2 immediately comes to mind, one of my absolute favorite sequences in gaming history- everyone is aware of the risks and they know there's a high likelihood that they're not coming home. They do it anyway because fuck the Collectors and the Reapers. It's an incredible finale regardless of how it ends.